


House of Glass

by mangetsu_san



Category: Produce 101 (TV), UNIQ (Band), UP10TION, X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Character Study, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Getting to Know Each Other, Light Angst, M/M, Manager Jinhyuk, Painter Seungyoun, Photographer Sejin, Slow Build, Slow Burn, model wooseok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-09-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 23:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20281744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangetsu_san/pseuds/mangetsu_san
Summary: Wooseok is a fashion model whose career hit a standstill, and having to pose for a painter symbolized rock bottom for him.Seungyoun is a talented but annoyingly cheerful painter, until he's so much more than that.During their two-month exhibition, they share music, dreams and fears, inspire each other to live and accidentally fall in love in the process.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Here's my first contribution to Seungseok nation! I promise it's not as emo as it sounds.

"I’m going to _what_ now?" Wooseok asked with disbelief in his voice that bordered on resentment.

He wanted to make sure he’d heard Jinhyuk’s words right. Jinhyuk, who was both his manager and long-time best friend, was the very person who introduced him to the world of modeling. He was three years older than Wooseok and in that sense, he felt more like an older brother when they were younger, but now that they were twenty-four and twenty-seven, they were equals. He could always openly tell Jinhyuk when he’s unhappy with something and Jinhyuk would turn the entire agency upside down to make him happy, but today, for the first time in his seven-years-long career, that was not the case.

He was sitting on a big velvet-covered sofa in Jinhyuk’s office, across from the mahogany table that was littered with papers and pictures of the models Jinhyuk was managing, and he could feel many emotions bubbling up in the pit of his stomach, none of which were positive. There was shock, disappointment, and just plain anger. Wooseok knew he wouldn’t be able to stop them from erupting from his mouth.

"You’re going to pose for a painter, as a part of an exhibition in a small gallery" Jinhyuk repeated "Look, the agency signed the contract without even asking me, let alone you. I agree that they shouldn’t have done that but if we back out now, we’ll both lose our jobs."

"So what am I now, some exhibitionist? A piece of trash that gets whored out to some third-league painters?" Wooseok started yelling, even though Jinhyuk knew that it wasn’t him he was so furious at.

"Whoa whoa, calm down" Jinhyuk tried to relax him without getting too close "First of all, you’re _not_ going to be nude. Actually, the good part is that there’s no dress code at all, you could wear your pajamas to work every day!"

"Oh, that’s supposed to make me feel better?! Does Minkyu have to pose for _painters_, huh? Does Yunseong?! No, because they’re too busy being in _Dazed_ or _Men’s Health_ or some shit!" Wooseok’s rage started spilling over his lips before he could even mold it into coherent sentences, and Jinhyuk knew there was no going back now.

Jinhyuk was the only person who knew Wooseok inside and out, in a way that he’d never let anyone else know him, but no thanks to Wooseok opening up to him. No, he’d never let himself slip up and talk about his emotions, not even to his childhood best friend. It was thanks to his own observation skills and the seventeen years they’d spent together that Jinhyuk knew about Wooseok’s deepest insecurities.

On the surface, Wooseok was a confident, albeit cold young man, a mystery that enchanted men and women alike. Back when he entered the industry at the age of seventeen, he was over-booked straight away. His classic beauty and perfectly symmetrical features soon made him the nation’s sweetheart and he was most wanted for date-themed shootings with female co-workers. He and Jinhyuk always joked about how ironic that was and how Wooseok being gay was unfair to his dedicated fanbase that consisted predominantly of teenage girls.

But that laughter and the sweet, sticky taste of fame had long left their lips and now all that remained were empty schedules, casting directors who never called back and a shell of the real Wooseok. It all started when their agency, _TOP Models_ recruited a big batch of models who were all younger, taller and more refreshing than Wooseok. The CEO had then explained to him that he was “boring” and “last season”. The fashion industry no longer needed a cookie-cutter boy-next-door, they wanted someone with a unique smile like Kim Yohan, or with insanely good proportions like Kang Minhee. Simply put, there was no longer a place in this world for Kim Wooseok. But it was a world he loved so dearly, even when he got exiled from it, and he couldn't just accept defeat. He couldn't leave and pose for _painters_.

"Wooseokie" Jinhyuk said gently "You had two shoots this past month, and we both know that’s barely enough to cover your rent. This guy paid pretty big cash for any random model from our company and the CEO chose you in particular. Not because you’re worthless or because others are “too busy with Vogue”, but because this is your chance to really show your character. To step out of those, as you call them, “dumb hetero shoots”, and show everyone that you’re more than just a fantasy for lonely women."

Wooseok couldn’t help but chuckle at his words (those shoots really did become irritating after a while), and relief had visibly painted Jinhyuk’s face when he saw Wooseok was reconsidering.

"So I’d be employed for two full months?" Wooseok finally asked, "And all I have to do is sit at that dumb gallery?"

"Yup," Jinhyuk said with a triumphant smile, knowing that Wooseok was on the verge of giving in "You don’t even have to wear make-up or do your hair if you don’t want to, you just have to be there at nine every morning and stay until six in the afternoon. Those were the only instructions given, really, and... oh yeah, there’s an hour-long lunch break at 2 pm and a lot of good restaurants near the gallery."

"Well, as long as I don’t have to work with some old creep, I guess I can survive sixty days..." Wooseok sighed.

"Oh, don’t worry, the artist is actually your age, fresh out of the Academy" Jinhyuk assured him "Plus, the exhibition he did for his graduation exam got really good reviews. I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of big names were keeping an eye on him."

It still wasn’t an ideal situation. He liked being in front of huge lights, liked wearing designer clothes, and having people do his hair and make-up made him feel like royalty. Maybe he was a little vain and materialistic, but who could blame him, everyone likes pretty things. Suddenly doing something that was so out of his comfort zone and so different from anything he’d ever worked on, honestly, it was a little scary, but he trusted his manager and his company and, as Jinhyuk said, financially he wasn’t in the position to refuse anything.

"Oh come on, I know that look on your face" Jinhyuk scolded him and extended his hand over the table just so he could pretend to punch Wooseok’s arm "You’re still skeptical. And you shouldn’t be, you should be excited! There’s literally no pressure on you for this job, you don’t have to fake any facial expressions or clog your pores with fifty layers of make-up, and you’re not forced into any tight and weather-inappropriate clothes! I’d say this is your best gig ever."

"I get it, I get it, you want me to be happy about this, but don’t push it" Wooseok warned him grimly "It’s still not what I came to this company to do."

No matter how hard he was trying to act tough, Jinhyuk could see the defeat on Wooseok’s face and that caused the same sadness to return to him. He wished he could give Wooseok everything he wanted, he really did, but he was just one of many managers, not the CEO of the company. But they’ll keep fighting, together, and that painter kid better do his best too to get the world talking about Wooseok again.


	2. Chapter 2

Wooseok couldn’t believe he got so worked up over such a stupid job. Jinhyuk told him he could come in his pajamas, yet there he was, applying his make-up all by himself (for the first time in who knows how long) even though it wasn’t mandatory at all. It was just weird, going to work with no make-up on. As he inspected the dark circles that weren’t there when he was 17 and the paleness of his lips, quiet but powerful waves of insecurity washed over him. In other words, Wooseok just didn’t want to leave the house bare-faced. He could do it when he met up with friends or family, but he didn’t want to be inspected by a stranger for the next seven hours without even a layer of concealer.

“For fuck’s sake!” Wooseok shouted at the mirror when he stabbed himself in the eye with the mascara wand. Why was all of this so hard when make-up artists made it look so easy? After a few more minor make-up mishaps, Wooseok realized - he was _not_ having a good day today.

First, he had to completely re-do his blush because he accidentally went overboard, then he miraculously failed to achieve that gradient lip effect, and to top it off, he hadn't known he’d used up his eyebrow pencil. When he took a step back to inspect his face, he realized his lips were too dark in contrast to his non-existent eyebrows, but at least his skin looked clear. He was already running late, so he had no choice but to settle for that.

Thankfully, the company still provided him with a driver, even when he stopped being over-booked, so he arrived at the gallery at 9.05. He figured five minutes was a forgivable amount of time.

The gallery didn’t look as bad as he thought it would, he’d even dare to say it was charming. It was small, that much was true, but Wooseok liked that type of aesthetics - it didn’t look hostile like most modern galleries, with kilometers of distance between two small paintings, and the walls weren’t perfectly white, but a subtly warm color that reminded him of a vanilla latte. It was minimalistic enough to let the art shine yet cozy enough to feel comforting, and Wooseok knew spending two months here shouldn’t be unbearable.

He shortly roamed the gallery until he found a big glass box in the corner of the room, and inside it a young man who was currently cleaning his brushes. There was no space for anything in the glass box except for two chairs, a canvas and a sink, but it didn’t look suffocating either. Wooseok came closer to the little house of glass.

He knocked on the glass door to get the attention of the man inside, who suddenly jumped up like a frightened cat and dropped one of his brushes in the process. The man, and most likely the painter he'd be working with, ran to open the door and Wooseok could now see his face more clearly.

The first thing he noticed were his small, fox-like but bright and friendly eyes. His features were sharp, but there was something unbelievably soft about his face. His hair wasn’t visible underneath the ridiculous (cute) black beret he was sporting, and his bright orange jumper was a bit of an eyesore, but that’s what made him look like a true artist. A fresh, hopeful type of young artist, just as Jinhyuk had described him.

“Come on in!” he held the door open for Wooseok in a gentlemanly way, and he noticed his voice was slightly higher than he had expected “I’m Cho Seungyoun. And you’re?”

“You don’t know me?”

“Sorry, I don’t really read fashion magazines” Seungyoun said simply. He didn’t sound embarrassed and apologetic, but not condescending either. Wooseok already felt like garbage for coming off as a stuck-up model, probably just what Seungyoun was expecting from him.

“I’m Kim Wooseok” he tried to explain “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I meant, you didn’t even ask who they were bringing?”

“Hm, nope” Seungyoun answered, “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Wow, you really are reckless” Wooseok muttered with a smile, but Seungyoun’s little chuckle sounded like he took it as a compliment.

“Yeah, I get that a lot” he agreed “But that’s the fun part of art, right?”

Wooseok barely noticed how they had already slipped into a conversation and were yet to start actually working. “Should I sit here?” he asked to regain some of his professionalism.

“Uh, yeah, just sit comfortably, take off your jacket if you need to” Seungyoun instructed, “This box is actually soundproof so even though we might get an audience, they can’t hear us and we can’t hear them, so just pretend they’re not there.”

“What’s the point of an audience, then?” Wooseok asked sincerely as he threw his baggy denim jacket over his chair. Seungyoun was settling across from him, not too close but not far away either, and it looked like he was picking out what tools to use today.

“Honestly, I don’t know” he answered while sharpening one of his many pencils “It wasn’t my initial idea, but the gallery owner said I had to do it this way if I want to exhibit my works here after I’m done. It’s kinda weird, but hey, they’re paying us both double, and it’s like two exhibits in one.”

Wooseok couldn’t say anything to that, he just watched Seungyoun fiddling with the mess of art supplies that was on his table. To be completely honest, Wooseok didn’t know a lot about art. He viewed it with admiration and respect, but he was never interested in it quite enough to have a favorite artist or form opinions on it. He knew some basic stuff, like how to recognize a Van Gogh or a Monet, but he definitely wouldn’t be able to keep up with Seungyoun in a conversation about art.

“So, Wooseok, what’s your favorite fruit?” Seungyoun asked out of nowhere.

“Huh? Why’s that important?”

“Dunno, I’m feeling fruity today. So?”

“I never thought about it,” Wooseok said, “I guess I mostly eat apples.”

“Red or green?”

“Um, red?” Wooseok was getting more confused by the second. Maybe it was true that all artists are insane.

“Wow, you don’t deserve rights” Seungyoun shook his head as he poured out some red onto his palette.

“Is this going to be like a segment, Weird question of the day?” Wooseok tried to joke but ended up sounding condescending again.

“Weird question of the day, I like it!” Seungyoun nodded as if Wooseok just gave him a great idea. Wooseok regretted it immediately.

“You’re weird” Wooseok said under his breath, and Seungyoun smiled again. He really hears everything, doesn’t he?

The moment Wooseok heard Seungyoun’s pencil slide across the canvas for the first time, they fell into a strange type of silence. It wasn’t necessarily awkward, because Wooseok didn’t feel any obligation to talk to Seungyoun in the first place. He’d even say he was a little relieved by the quiet, but there was something in the way Seungyoun studied him that made him tense up. He couldn’t give up his pride and pretend he’s not being stared at. Wooseok wasn’t some bashful young heiress posing for a medieval master.

So he did what he knew best - pretended he was staring at a camera. He stared directly into Seungyoun’s eyes with a fierce look of a high-fashion model. Sharp, almost threatening, but he had no idea where that anger was coming from. He subconsciously wanted to scare Seungyoun away, as if saying: “This face belongs to me. You’re not worthy of looking at me like that.”

And then Seungyoun started grinning like an idiot. “Oh man, this is going to be so fun!” he squeaked like a child on Christmas morning. His pencil started moving more feverishly, although Wooseok couldn’t see what the movement was producing. Seungyoun still had that dopey grin on his face.

“What? What’s so funny?” Wooseok asked, honestly perplexed by such a reaction to absolutely nothing.

“You are” Seungyoun said simply, not looking away from the canvas, and not feeling the need to explain any further.

Wooseok decided not to start that conversation. Maybe this man really was an idiot, or just a huge manbaby. He instead kept staring at him with the same judgmental and guarded eyes, and sometimes Seungyoun stared at him too. His face clearly indicated that he was focused on Wooseok in a studious, professional manner, but there was something else there. Something playful, an excitement that just deepened Wooseok’s belief that he’s childish. But he wasn’t dumb.

“You can play some music, if you want to” Seungyoun remembered suddenly “I forgot to bring my sound system today, but I like having music in the background while I paint. And I just like music, in general.”

Wooseok wanted to say something like “I didn’t ask”, but he reminded himself again that he has no reason to take it out on Seungyoun. It wasn’t his fault that Wooseok wasn’t in front of a camera right now. It wasn’t his fault that Wooseok had to do his make up himself and thus made his lips two shades too red. It wasn’t his fault he was a failure.

Not that he’d ever admit it to Seungyoun, but he liked music too, a lot. He personally never wanted to deal with the stress of being an idol (even though Jinhyuk and many others had suggested it), but he enjoyed all the mainstream K-pop everyone else did. He just wasn’t in the mood to have his music taste judged by some pretentious artist. Though, Seungyoun was full of surprises.

“I’m good” he finally said.

“Okay, I’ll bring my loudspeaker tomorrow” Seungyoun shrugged and kept sketching.

“I have a feeling you don’t want to talk to me so I’m not going to bug you today, you can just sit there and pout for now” he remembered to add after some time.

“I’m not _pouting_” Wooseok said with disgust, but maybe he was pouting without realizing it. He quickly slapped his lips against one another twice, before Seungyoun could look at him.

Still, he was thankful that Seungyoun was at least sensible enough to leave him alone. He was annoying by nature and Wooseok could practically feel him vibrating in his seat with curiosity, but he obviously knew how to respect boundaries. And so they settled into another silence.

Wooseok allowed himself to slip into his own thoughts. There was no use in wondering what was going on in Seungyoun’s head, it’s not like he could ever understand the thought process of an artist at work. His eyes were trained somewhere in Seungyoun’s general direction, for the sake of the painting, but Wooseok was mostly looking through him and thinking about a thousand different things.

He remembered how he met Minkyu at the company yesterday and the innocent little comment he made that still tasted bitter in his mouth. He had no option but to tell Minkyu about this “project” when he so kindly asked what hyung was up to these days. “Wow, that’s so cool, I wish I could do interesting stuff like that!” Minkyu said sincerely, but Wooseok felt the corners of his mouth twitching as if he ate a lemon.

_No_ _you_ _don’t_, he stopped himself from saying, and instead just nodded with a plastic smile. He excused himself before he would have to go through the torture of asking Minkyu about his bookings, even though he secretly looked through Jinhyuk’s folders all the time and therefore knew Minkyu’s schedule by heart.

Wooseok was never a jealous person, not before he turned 23 and stopped getting booked. From then on out, an acidic feeling of envy started bubbling in his stomach whenever he saw the fresh faces of TOP Models’ new stars. The pages of the magazines he bought simply because he liked fashion were now not filled with his role models, but his juniors. He couldn’t even look at the clothes peacefully anymore because he only had one type of haunting, spiraling thoughts - “Why am I not wearing this?” “Why am I not on this page?” “Why are my seven years of experience worth less than this kid’s height?”

He had to stop himself from falling back into those thoughts, though he knew it was bound to happen when he was left alone in the silence. So he had to distract himself with the only other thing present in the room - Seungyoun.

Seungyoun wasn’t unpleasant to look at, far from it. Wooseok simply felt wrong about staring at someone. Seungyoun had an excuse to stare at him as much as he needed, but Wooseok didn’t. Well, it’s not like he cared about Seungyoun’s opinion anyway, he wasn’t exactly comfortable either, so why not stare back? Seungyoun was just a photographer in his eyes. Maybe he used a pencil and a confusingly large number of brushes instead of a camera, and maybe he couldn’t capture exactly what Wooseok looked like with one push of a button, but it was essentially the same. So he decided to regard the canvas as another model of a camera, and with that, he put an impenetrable barrier between them.

He never particularly cared about photographers. Of course, being in the industry for as long as he was, he knew the names of the best and worst photographers, and he generally knew what he was getting into with everyone he worked with. But there was never anything personal about it. Working with certain names was a great honor, while others knew how to be a pain in the ass, but Jinhyuk made sure he never worked with any pervert or anyone who treated models like shit. Why would it be different with a painter?

“I think we have an audience” the painter in question suddenly informed him. Wooseok turned his head with cat-like reflexes and spotted a middle-aged man and a woman looking at them quietly. It was creepy at first, the way they watched them like they were just a TV screen and not actually aware of their presence, but Seungyoun was strangely casual about it.

“I told you, you don’t have to pay any attention to them. They’re just gonna keep coming in bigger numbers the longer this goes on” Seungyoun reminded him. His face and the movement of his right hand was the same as before the couple came to their glass house. How could he not be bothered at all by someone watching him work?

_Staff_, Wooseok said to himself. They were just the extra staff working on set, the lighting crew, the make-up artists who scattered to save his foundation from melting underneath the scorching spotlight. That quickly helped him regain his composure.

“They’ll probably go away soon, since we’re not even talking” Seungyoun joked.

“Then don’t talk to me until they do” Wooseok deadpanned.

“But I can talk to you after that?”

“No.”

“Ah, I should’ve seen that coming...” Seungyoun sighed, but he sounded amused rather than disappointed. It was like every little thing Wooseok said or did was a victory in his book, but Wooseok couldn’t understand why. Sure, most people would get bored by doing this for two months without even talking, but Wooseok was completely fine with that prospect. He never spoke much with the photographers, except when asking for and taking directions. There was no reason for this to work differently.

Meanwhile, their first visitors had left and they were alone again. Behind Wooseok’s back was only a wall, but Seungyoun, on the other hand, was completely exposed by the glass. Anyone could see not only his face, but also his painting in all its phases, as it’s being created. Wooseok thought that was frightening, but Seungyoun didn’t seem to mind it.

“It’s only 11 pm on a Monday,” Seungyoun said unprompted (again) “It’s probably going to be a lot more crowded in the afternoon and on the weekends.”

“Wait, it’s been 2 hours?” Wooseok asked.

“Yeah, you didn’t notice? Well, we did start about fifteen minutes after nine.”

“I guess I was just thinking.”

“About?”

“None of your business.”

Seungyoun chuckled again, like he liked being told off by Wooseok. And god, did Wooseok hate that kind of people. His skin crawled at the thought of people taking it as a challenge to get to know him and make him “put his walls down” or whatever the fuck they were preaching. No, he wasn’t “acting hard to get”, he just wasn’t interested in making new friends. Then again, it might’ve just been the douchebags he met every time he went to a bar that made him have so little faith in humanity.

Time kept flowing in silence. Wooseok thought about taking his phone out, but it might’ve been a bit rude for a first meeting. No matter how much he resented being here and wanted to distance himself from Seungyoun, they were still co-workers, if you could call it that. He was never rude to photographers or any other staff members in his entire career, so he shouldn’t get that kind of reputation.

But seriously, how is he supposed to survive _two months _of this? Why couldn’t this guy just take a photo of him and then paint from that? Why did he have to paint him every day, for _sixty _days, when he’s not going to change at all during that time? Won’t _he _get tired of this? The CEO of TOP Models said it himself – Wooseok’s face is mundane. He hoped this guy would eventually find him too boring to work with and shorten the contract, or back out of the whole exhibition or whatever. But he’s a weirdo, so he’ll probably find some twisted type of fun in all of it.

* * *

Wooseok managed to survive seven more hours in complete silence. When the clock struck 2 pm, he remembered what Jinhyuk told him about his lunch break, so he and Seungyoun both went out of the gallery, but he declined Seungyoun’s offer to eat together. He found a small ramyeon place nearby, sat there and scrolled through his socials for an hour, and came back surprisingly recharged.

The three hours after his lunch break went by faster than the first five, and it was finally six o’clock, the magic number that gave Wooseok his freedom back. But Seungyoun looked frustrated.

“What, you haven’t had enough of me these past seven hours?” Wooseok teased.

“Yeah, it’s such a shame to cut off our lovely conversation,” Seungyoun said sarcastically, since there was no conversation to speak of “No, I’m mad because I didn’t get to finish this at all. I need to get quicker if we’re going to do this.”

“Can I see it?” Wooseok finally asked. He wasn’t even sure why he was curious, but he’d never seen himself on a painting before, and he needed to know if Seungyoun was actually any good or if he’s going to ruin his face (and reputation) completely. Frankly, he was scared of the latter.

When Seungyoun turned the canvas around, however, Wooseok was left speechless.

Seungyoun’s style wasn’t completely realistic, there was no over-the-top shadowing or a special feeling of texture to Wooseok’s skin. It was quite minimalistic actually, and a very unique style that almost reminded Wooseok of digital art and webcomics, but what captured the eye were the soft colors that looked like they bled into one another. Each stroke of the brush somehow looked both calculated and spontaneous, just like Seungyoun whose body was vibrating with excitement while he was painting, but his eyes were frighteningly focused.

The painting looked exactly like Wooseok, all right. His expression was bored and frustrated, with eyebrows ever so slightly knit together and lips in a perfectly straight line that served as an emotionless façade. Seungyoun didn’t miss Wooseok’s make-up mishaps either, he painted his eyebrows comically light and his red lips stood out on the snow-white face. It would’ve been a standard portrait if Seungyoun hadn’t added something so characteristically _Seungyoun_.

Two big red apples to cover Wooseok’s cheeks.

They went a little outside of the borders of his face, and they made even the cold, vaguely angry Wooseok look more fun and boyish. The apples made a perfect contrast to the other emotions Seungyoun put into his painting, without watering them down. It was all too confusing to explain.

“It looks pretty finished to me”, was all Wooseok managed to say.

“Are you kidding, this is only the first layer of color!” Seungyoun whined “There are no highlights, see, your face looks completely flat! I mean, a part of it might be your awful white foundation, but I definitely could’ve made it more 3D.”

“Did you just insult my make-up?!” Wooseok was taken aback by such a direct comment.

“Dude, didn’t you know you went out of the house with no eyebrows?” Seungyoun giggled “I’m just saying, I’m not a fan of that whole whitewashing bullshit. I’m sorry to say it, but this isn’t your typical modeling gig.”

“Okay, whatever, I think your painting’s childish” Wooseok scoffed.

“Yeah, is it because of the apples?” Seungyoun asked earnestly, like he was asking Wooseok for feedback “I really like them, but they’d look better if I had time to make them realistic.”

“It’s not the apples, although they’re really dumb” Wooseok cut him off “I can see in this painting how excited you were to paint it.”

“But that’s a great thing!” Seungyoun cheered for himself.

“I just don’t get it” Wooseok shrugged “I’m going home now.”

“I’m DJing tomorrow!” Seungyoun said happily instead of a normal goodbye. He even waved as Wooseok exited the glass room. What a weird guy.

* * *

Wooseok was surprised to see not his driver, but Jinhyuk himself waiting for him in front of the gallery. He flopped down into his car without a word.

“Soo, how was your first day?” Jinhyuk asked with the excitement of a mother that picked her son up from his first day of school. Wooseok kept looking out the window with the matching anger of a child who really hated going to school. But another part of him couldn’t wait to bitch about it to Jinhyuk.

“Can I quit?” he asked.

“Nooo, is it that bad?” Jinhyuk pouted worriedly.

“It’s boring, and the painter is weird as fuck” Wooseok said without actually giving an explanation.

“Weird? Weird how?”

“Well, I don’t know, I just don’t like him” Wooseok admitted, “He has a weird vibe.”

“Wooseokie, you can’t quit working with someone because you don’t like their _vibe_” Jinhyuk laughed.

“Jinhyuk, I went in there and not even ten minutes later, this kid asks what’s my favorite fruit!” Wooseok argued “Before even asking my age or anything! So I said it’s red apples because whatever, I've never thought about my favorite _fruit_, and he _painted _two red apples right on my face!”

“Is the painting any good at least?”

“I mean, yeah, I guess it’s good. It’s not like I know anything about art.”

“Then I’m sure you can survive fifty-nine more days” Jinhyuk tried to cheer him up, but the number only made Wooseok cringe and bang his head against the car door theatrically.

“Fifty-nine days...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to post two chapters at once since they're both just kind of introductory, but I hope you like the premise! It's not all gonna be this boring, I promise :)


	3. Chapter 3

On the second day, Wooseok’s make-up looked slightly more natural. He gave up on the trendy gradient lips and evenly applied just a little bit of peach-colored lip tint, opted for a matching blush, and secretly followed Seungyoun’s tip about not putting on too much foundation. He never looked this… well, _normal_ for his photoshoots. He didn’t know what to think of it.

Seungyoun couldn’t find his sound system at home, so they were left without the promised background music, but he didn’t forget Weird question of the day. Today he asked about Wooseok’s favorite season and colored the background of his painting grey like the autumn sky, but made sure to accentuate the orange on Wooseok’s cheeks and lips. The Wooseok on the painting still looked as unreasonably angry as the real Wooseok felt.

On the third day, Seungyoun realized he borrowed his loudspeaker to a friend. He asked about Wooseok’s favorite color and painted him using only the coldest shades of blue, but left his plush lips strikingly red. That painting looked disjointed to Wooseok, even more so than the first two, but he noticed Seungyoun liked contrasts; he liked painting Wooseok as he looked on the outside with only a glimpse of what could be on the inside. The boyish apples on his cheeks, the burning orange hues of autumn, and now the passionate red lips that had much more dimension and detail than the rest of the painting. But Seungyoun couldn’t know what’s really inside. It was all a guessing game at the end of the day, even if Seungyoun was winning it.

On the fourth day, Wooseok wondered what it would be like if their roles were reversed. Obviously, Wooseok didn’t know the first thing about painting, but he wondered what it would feel like to walk a mile in Seungyoun’s shoes. He found himself wanting to hear the story behind Seungyoun’s paintings, wanting to know what goes on inside his head during their silences and what he really thought about Wooseok. His paintings can’t be fully based on Weird question of the day. Wooseok gave him the bare minimum to work with and he always managed to turn the canvas into a mirror for Wooseok. And not by having photographic precision, because Seungyoun valued his individuality way too much for that. Someone as artistically uneducated as Wooseok couldn’t simply figure out how he did it.

Wooseok was afraid Seungyoun understood him better than he thought he did.

“Can you read my mind?” Wooseok finally asked, only half-jokingly.

“What? Why do you say that?” Seungyoun laughed.

“Don’t take it as a compliment, but” Wooseok regretted those words the moment they left him “You always paint how I feel without even talking to me. People always told me my face isn’t that expressive.”

“Well, thank you, but sadly I can’t read your mind, _yet_” Seungyoun took it as a compliment either way “Only when you’re being really obvious about it.”

“Huh? Like when?”

“Like the first day you came here and you looked ready to shove a paintbrush down my throat” Seungyoun recalled with a strange fondness “I could clearly hear what your facial expression was saying – ‘Why am I here and not at a photoshoot?’ and ‘I’m just gonna pretend this guy is a photographer’.”

Wooseok almost choked on air. “You knew that I was thinking that the entire time?”

“When I was five my mom signed me up for soccer even though I didn’t like soccer” Seungyoun told instead of answering the question “At that point I couldn’t tell her that I only liked drawing and coloring, so while I was on the soccer field, I was pretending my feet were leaving lines of color behind me and that I was only drawing shapes by running. ‘I should draw a circle around this guy, a zig-zag here, a nice straight line to there’. It accidentally made me a great soccer player.”

Wooseok listened to the story with surprising interest. “What I’m saying is, I can only see the thoughts that are also in my head. Other than that, I have no idea what’s going on behind that pretty face of yours. Don’t worry.”

Wooseok shouldn’t be surprised by someone calling him pretty. He shouldn’t be surprised by anything Seungyoun says or does, really, but he still is. He’s surprised by Seungyoun’s pretty and intelligent way of speaking, and he thinks he could try talking to him more. But it’s six o’clock and a quite finished painting-Wooseok is staring at him from behind a pastel pink chrysanthemum. Wooseok told Seungyoun he liked the way he painted his favorite flower and went home for the day, missing the chance to see Seungyoun’s smile bloom larger than the chrysanthemum.

* * *

It was the start of their second week (their “one week anniversary”, as Seungyoun dubbed it) when Seungyoun’s friend returned the loudspeaker. Wooseok didn’t expect it to be so big or such an expensive brand, but Seungyoun hadn't been joking when he said he loved music.

“Any requests?” Seungyoun asked as he connected his phone to the speaker.

“I don’t even know what you have on there.”

“Oh, a little bit of everything, as long as it’s good I’m not picky about the genre” Seungyoun explained unhelpfully.

“Play whatever you want, I guess.”

“Okay, let’s start with something chill!” Seungyoun announced excitedly and played a song Wooseok had never heard before. It had a nice calming beat, and the male singer’s voice was soothing and smooth too, but Wooseok couldn’t understand the English lyrics.

“You listen to a lot of foreign music?” he asked Seungyoun, who was already humming while sketching out today’s painting.

“Well, I told you, I listen to everything. I like Korean music too, but lately I’ve been into foreign R’n’B and dream pop. What about you?”

“I like K-pop.” Seungyoun didn’t laugh at him, he just smiled.

“I knew it! You have that idol aura. I think you’d be a popular idol.”

“Probably” Wooseok said honestly “But I like my privacy too much. Was that your question of the day?”

“No, it wasn’t weird enough!” Seungyoun explained “There’s not gonna be a special question today, I’m trying something different. But don’t worry, they’re returning tomorrow!”

“You’re weird.”

“Did you know that you are too?” Wooseok really didn’t want to know how Seungyoun ever came to that conclusion, so he decided to focus on the music.

He liked having music in their little house of glass, it was a nice change-up compared to the week they spent in silence. Not that Wooseok disliked the silence, he learned to appreciate it, but he probably would’ve gotten stuck in his own head had it went on for any longer. Now he didn’t have to think, he could dive into Seungyoun’s slow and relaxing playlist and try to follow the words he didn’t understand. He liked Seungyoun’s music taste.

“What was that song right now?” he asked in between two songs.

“It’s called ‘Easily’ by Bruno Major. It’s my go-to these days, it sounds especially good in the morning while you’re making your coffee.”

Wooseok got a mental image of Seungyoun waking up early to make coffee before he goes to the gallery, and putting some music on before anything else. He imagined Seungyoun would sit on a small terrace or just in his living room and slowly drink his carefully made coffee, probably while humming like he’s doing right now. Such a mundane scene evoked a strange sense of peace in him.

They talked about their favorite songs and artists, and Wooseok recognized very few of the names Seungyoun told him, but Seungyoun talked about music with such passion that was hard to believe he was a painter and not a musician. Wooseok guessed he was one of those people who didn’t do anything halfway, and the type of artist who had so much love in him for the arts that he couldn’t limit it to just one art form.

When Wooseok talked about his favorite groups, he didn’t even feel ashamed that he’s into such mainstream stuff, because Seungyoun commented on it with the same zest that he had when he talked about his own favorites. He told him he had “EXO vibes”, whatever that meant, and Wooseok took it as a high compliment.

“BTS really are geniuses,” Seungyoun agreed when they came to the topic of Wooseok’s favorite group “Have you heard RM’s mixtape? Man, his lyrics really go beyond K-pop. Their concept, their evolution, it’s easy to see why they got so much recognition worldwide. I admire artists like them, those who start from the bottom and make their way to the top just by staying motivated and improving the quality of their work.”

Little by little, Wooseok felt free to talk about the personal connections he had to music, like all the times Jinhyuk dragged him to karaoke and made his ears bleed with his off-tune singing to Disney soundtracks, and the night they accidentally found out Jinhyuk is actually a great rapper. He told Seungyoun about another one of his long-time friends, a vocal coach named Seungwoo who makes Jinhyuk cry on purpose by singing ballads whenever he goes to karaoke with them. Seungyoun provided his own karaoke stories, mainly about his younger friend and painting protege named Dohyon, who always ends up getting bullied by the friend group into singing the cutest possible girl group songs even though he hates it. They laughed at their friends together, sometimes even imitating their voices, and time passed quicker than ever.

For the first time in their one week of working together, the lunch alarm caught them in the middle of a conversation.

“Do you want to get lunch together?”

And for some reason, Wooseok did want to eat lunch with Seungyoun. So he nodded, and if Seungyoun wanted to pump his fist in the air to celebrate his first major success, it would forever stay his secret.

Instead of his usual ramyeon place, Seungyoun took Wooseok to a restaurant that was a bit further away, but served amazing kimbap. Wooseok learned that Seungyoun wasn’t picky about food either, and could eat _a lot_. Some of the lunch break was spent enjoying the delicious food in silence, some was spent in the same music-centered conversation they started back at the gallery. Wooseok even laughed at some of Seungyoun’s stupid jokes, and even the ones he had to roll his eyes at made his lips quirk up a little bit. When Seungyoun laughed at Wooseok’s poisonous sarcasm (usually directed at him), his cheeks looked dangerously close to bursting with the rice they were stuffed with, and the smile always, always reached his eyes.

Before Wooseok could protest, Seungyoun paid the entire bill.

Some kind of invisible barrier that was between them broke down when they found a common interest. Not just because they started talking or because there was music echoing off the glass walls, but the way they talked felt like they’ve known each other for a lot longer than just a week. Wooseok wondered how Seungyoun could listen to music, hold a conversation and paint all at the same time, but in the end he just figured it would make his painting look more interesting.

“Why did you put kimbap on my cheeks? Didn’t you already do that with the apples?” Wooseok asked, at exactly six pm.

“See, it’s not all about you” Seungyoun shook his head “A painting is 25% about the subject, 25% about the painter, and 50% about the viewer’s interpretation. So you and I are present in these paintings in equal parts, even though it’s only your face on the canvas.”

“So you’re saying this kimbap, and those apples, are an expression of your feelings?”

“Exactly! They represent the same feeling. See, you’re starting to get it” Seungyoun looked like a proud tutor whose disciple just passed a test.

“And what feeling is that?” Wooseok giggled “Hunger?”

“Close, but no” Seungyoun considered “I’ll let you figure it out yourself.”

* * *

That night, Wooseok fell asleep to ’Easily’ by Bruno Major, trying to figure out the hidden message behind red apples and kimbap rolls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i apologize that this (and the next) chapter are super short and uneventful, but i promise it's going to take a turn soon ;-;  
i hope you were still able to enjoy it, also listen to "easily" by bruno major because it's seungyoun's actual recommendation and it's been on repeat for days now because it's so nice and calming <3


	4. Chapter 4

From the day Seungyoun started bringing his loudspeaker to the gallery, their days became a lot more cheerful. Well, Seungyoun had been cheerful from the start, even to the point of Wooseok finding him annoying, but music mellowed both of their personalities closer to the golden middle where they could meet each other.

Seungyoun wasn’t kidding when he said he listened to everything under the sun – depending on the time of the day and the concept he had for today’s painting, the songs he chose varied greatly, but Wooseok found all of them pleasant enough to listen to. Some of them might’ve not been what he’d pick on his own, but he liked getting to know Seungyoun without actually having to speak to him. Seungyoun sometimes threw in little anecdotes, events that the current song reminded him of, and they were always the most random things, like his eighteenth birthday or the summer breaks he’d spent at his grandma’s house in the countryside. Wooseok wondered how he could remember such a distant past, when Wooseok himself didn’t have any stand-out childhood memories to speak of. Well, Seungyoun was the artist between them, leave it to him to paint his life much more interesting than it probably was.

And if listening to music already built a bridge between them, singing together made Wooseok want to cross that bridge.

“I love this song!” Seungyoun cheered out of nowhere and started bouncing his shoulders up and down when a new tune started playing. Wooseok had only a vague sense that he’d heard the song somewhere at some point, but he didn’t fully recognize it from the first beats. Seungyoun, however, had a smile on his face as he moved both his head and his brush almost in time with the song, and when the chorus began, he broke into full-on singing.

His singing was beautiful.

His voice was loud and English pronunciation clear, and seeing him that happy pulled Wooseok’s lips into a smile. And when Seungyoun stopped working and used his paintbrush as a microphone, Wooseok absolutely lost it. Even though he was at work (and Wooseok realized they had an audience much too late), he was acting like a highschooler at best, completely at ease with himself. The people watching them from outside the glass house couldn’t hear the song nor Seungyoun’s singing, they could only see them enjoying themselves, but the sound of that joy was kept between the glass walls – between the two of them.

Seungyoun made sure to finish the entire song, but he sounded out of breath when the next (much calmer) one started playing. Still, he had that dopey satisfied smile on his face, like he had an itch to sing that he finally scratched.

“You’re good at singing” Wooseok admitted “Just how many hobbies do you have?”

“Thanks” Seungyoun giggled sheepishly “I actually got my scholarship at the Academy based on singing. But then after a year I changed my major because I’m useless like that.”

“What? You majored in singing?” he managed to surprise Wooseok again “Why’d you quit?“

“Ah, well, it’s a complicated story, not very pretty either...” Seungyoun looked _shy _for the first time since Wooseok met him “It would probably bore you.”

“Tell me.”

Both of them were surprised by Wooseok’s commanding voice, and Wooseok was a little embarrassed about how much interest he showed in Seungyoun’s life, but he had to admit – it was intriguing. Seungyoun had so many layers underneath that bright aura and Wooseok decided it was a story worth hearing. Not like he had anything better to do at the moment, anyway.

“Okay,” Seungyoun finally nodded and began, sounding a little unsure of how to pick the right words “So by the time I finished high school, it was obvious I wasn’t smart enough to go into medicine or law or some other socially acceptable shit, but not going to college wasn’t an option either, so I had to find something I didn’t _hate_. And to be clear, I had been painting for like ten years at that point, I _knew _that painting was the only thing I could do for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t choose that as my major.”

“Why not?”

Seungyoun responded with a bitter chuckle. “Because no one had even seen my paintings. There were kids at my school winning competitions or at least having their works hung in the hallways, and I always thought ’But I’m better than them’, but I still couldn’t bring myself to share my art with my friends or even my mom. It’s just too personal, you know, they would be shocked to find that side of me. Everyone knew I painted, I always said it was my hobby, but no one knew if I was any good, what I even painted, and how serious I was about it. Maybe I even wanted it to stay something that’s just mine. It was the only way I could be myself without worrying what people thought about me.”

“Was it really that scandalous, though?” Wooseok rolled his eyes.

“Well, maybe it was, I was pretty emo in high school” Seungyoun laughed “But that’s not why I was afraid. I was afraid I wasn’t good enough to confidently say ’Hey, I want to be a painter’, that people would laugh at me. It’s an unstable career, and it’s hard to get into the Academy’s as a painting major, so I thought I should find something similar but not quite that unprofitable. With singing, I had a good chance of becoming an idol, as funny as that sounds now.”

“Then why didn’t you? Become an idol, I mean.”

“I like my freedom” Seungyoun said simply “Constructive criticism for my paintings, that I could learn to handle. But I really, really hate being judged based on superficial things. I want to have tattoos and hickeys and puffy cheeks because I ate too much ramyeon at 2 am. I couldn’t pretend I’m not human.”

“You could have still earned enough as an OST singer or a back-up vocal.”

“Yeah, but I couldn’t stand it anymore” Seungyoun smiled sadly “After a year, I couldn’t stand myself for throwing away the only dream I ever had, and I couldn’t stand the thought of dedicating my life to anything other than the only thing that actually _kept me_ alive. Singing was lots of fun, but if I’m surrounded by people who love it just as much as I love painting, it’s not fair to be less passionate than them. So I re-took the entrance exam, somehow got accepted, and here am I now, not quite as starving as I thought I’d be, but still made fun of for not having a real degree or a real job.”

“Hey, it’s real” Wooseok scolded him, but there was a hidden softness in those words “You’re painting Korea’s most beautiful model right now. You’re in the middle of an exhibit, for fuck’s sake, you work from nine to six _seven days a week_, that’s... very employed of you” Seungyoun laughed, because he never expected Wooseok to try so hard to comfort him.

“Anyway, it’s better than not going to college and becoming a model because you don’t even have a talent or a passion, only a pretty face.”

Seungyoun got his breath stuck in his throat. The image of a cold, confident Wooseok that he nursed in his head and on his canvas shattered into a million pieces right in front of his eyes. It was hard to keep painting.

“Fuck anyone who made you believe in that” he finally said “Don’t actually fuck them, obviously, since they don’t deserve the privilege, but fuck them, you know?”

It was Wooseok’s turn to laugh at Seungyoun’s pathetic attempt to make him feel better.

“If we’re a useless artist and a useless model, how are we making all these amazing paintings, huh?” Seungyoun began, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop himself this time “Why are all these people taking time out of their day to watch us sing songs they can’t even hear? Because we’re a fucking _spectacle_, Wooseok. You’re fucking beautiful and I’m fucking talented and we have what all those doctors and lawyers wish they had.”

_You’re fucking beautiful. We’re a fucking spectacle. You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful._

Neither of them was the greatest advice-giver, objectively speaking, but they managed to say exactly what the other needed to hear, and now they were on top of the world together. Wooseok wanted to be the one to surprise Seungyoun this time.

He chose the first Korean song he knew the lyrics of and started singing. It was coincidentally also one of his favorite songs to sing at karaoke bars, “Love Shot” by Exo. Once he managed to tame his stupidly wide smile, Seungyoun joined in.

If he weren’t in the middle of painting, Wooseok was sure Seungyoun would’ve started a full-on dance party. He could see him restlessly painting, mixing new colors with more white in them, but he didn’t stop singing loudly for a single moment. Wooseok’s voice became louder and louder too. They knew there were people watching, and they didn’t care. Even if they went off-tune during the higher parts of the song because they were too hyper to sing properly, no one would know, and no one would judge.

Wooseok waved his head left and right and sang with the corners of his lips slightly upturned, at some parts he even closed his eyes. His technique wasn’t quite as good as singing-major-Seungyoun’s, but his friends told him he had a nice voice whenever they heard him sing, so he wasn’t particularly ashamed either. It was essentially the same as singing with Jinhyuk in his car when a good song came on the radio, except Seungyoun’s voice was much less ear-grating than Jinhyuk’s. They looked similar in the way they enjoyed the music, though.

Maybe it was time for Wooseok to admit that Seungyoun’s positive energy was infectious. There was something about him that made you want to follow his antics and be his partner in crime, no matter what nonsensical idea he got this time. He was as eccentric as an artist had to be in order to make truly unique art, but he was also human. He was so excited while painting because he never thought he’d have a chance to make it something more than his little secret. He wasn’t pretending to be happy; he just played it up a little to make up for the years of suffering he had to endure.

Wooseok was a firm believer that people can never understand each other completely. Even if you lay your heart fully open for someone to dissect, even if you spend your entire life with someone, there are some thoughts you can’t convey, and feelings too big for the incomplete human language. Still, he liked being able to understand Seungyoun better. He wondered if Seungyoun wished to understand him too.

“Those people are probably thinking: ’What the hell are these weirdos doing?’” Wooseok finally said, but he still didn’t turn his head to look at their audience.

“Yeah, but that’s what keeps them coming back for more” Seungyoun _winked _at him “It would’ve been boring if we’d just spent two full months not talking, don’t you think?”

“It would’ve just been harder to explain to people why I think you’re a weirdo. Now I have rock-solid evidence.” Seungyoun laughed, as he always did when Wooseok insulted him.

“You wanna know what I said to Jinhyuk the first day I met you?” Wooseok continued, and he could see he more than piqued Seungyoun’s interest “I told him I don’t like your vibe. And then I asked to quit.”

“Excuse you, my _vibe _is literally the best thing about me!” Seungyoun sounded genuinely insulted but still unable to keep a straight face “Well, I can’t complain because I told my friends you’re a spoiled brat who thinks being a bitch is a personality trait.”

Wooseok opened his mouth wide and Seungyoun knew he’d sealed his destiny.

“At least I don’t have to hide my rat bangs under beanies and berets.”

“Listen here, pretty boy” Seungyoun declared war “There are probably people out there who’d pay you to insult them, but _I’m _just paying you to sit there and look nice. So unless you want me to give you matching ’rat bangs’, do _not _comment on my fashion choices ever again.”

“Technically you’re not paying me, the gallery is paying both of us” Wooseok corrected him with the fakest sweet voice he could possibly produce “Also, isn’t it so kind of me to insult you for free when I could just charge you for my invaluable fashion advice?”

“I give up, I’m never going to beat you at being an asshole.”

* * *

“It’s... chaotic.”

The portrait Seungyoun painted that day was an _explosion _of color and short strokes. The background was red, a lot bolder than Seungyoun’s usual backgrounds, since he liked to focus more on Wooseok’s face, but it had swift lines of electric blue running through the red. Wooseok didn’t know it was possible to paint sounds, but he could almost _hear _“Love Shot” coming from the canvas. This painting, more than any other, was a testimony of Seungyoun’s incredible natural talent.

Wooseok’s face wasn’t lost in the colorful background. There were liquid gold highlights on his cheekbones and his skin looked smoother and more glowing than it was in real life. But this painting wasn’t about portraying Wooseok’s beauty as something distant and silent – no, the Wooseok in this painting was _singing_.

His usually open doe-eyes were now crinkled by the wide, open smile he had while singing. He still looked incredibly peaceful, despite how dynamic the painting was. To Seungyoun, this expression of Wooseok represented the feeling you get when you go to sleep after a good day and think about how happy you are you’ll wake up again tomorrow. He was the sheer comfort of knowing you’re alive. Wooseok was, in the strangest of ways, both exciting and soothing to him.

“Wooseokie, Wooseokie...” Seungyoun waved his head and threw an arm around Wooseok’s shoulders like a wise old man “There’s a difference between ’chaotic’ and _lively_. This painting is actually very tame, despite the colors. It’s just happy!”

“I think I’d go insane if I looked at it for a long time” Wooseok stood by his attitude “But I still like it. I can’t explain why, I just like it.”

“That’s exactly what people said about Van Gogh’s early works!” Seungyoun clapped his hands “It’s important that you like it. I like getting suggestions from people who know a lot about art, it helps me improve, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is to make people feel something. Even if it’s dizziness.”

“Oh, it’s definitely dizziness” Wooseok laughed “But how did you have time to do all of this when we spent so much time singing?”

“I didn’t sketch today” Seungyoun whispered as if he was confessing to a sin.

“You didn’t plan _anything_?! Just straight up started coloring?”

“Yep” Seungyoun looked secretly proud of himself “I’ve always wanted to try that, so I got the courage today.”

“So that’s why you didn’t pay enough attention to my face...” Wooseok nodded thoughtfully while looking at the painting.

“Hey, I pay a lot of attention to your face!” Seungyoun protested, but he realized by Wooseok’s mischievous squint how that could be misinterpreted “I mean, that’s whole point of portraits.”

“You should pay more attention to me” Wooseok concluded bravely “Maybe you should follow me on Instagram or something. I take really good photos.”

“What kind of shameless self-promo is that?!” Seungyoun teased “Fine, give me your Instagram. But if you don’t follow me back, I won’t hesitate to unfollow you!”

* * *

Jinhyuk picked him up again, which became a suspiciously regular occurrence, considering that Jinhyuk was known to be the busiest manager in their agency, working only with the most in-demand models. Well, whatever it was that made him spend so much time with Wooseok, he was grateful for.

“It’s six-twenty” Jinhyuk noticed “Couldn’t get enough of Seungyoun’s bad vibes in nine hours?”

Every time he got in the car Jinhyuk would start with some variation of the same question – “So, does Seungyoun still have bad vibes?”, and Wooseok would always roll his eyes instead of responding. Wooseok was quick to redirect the conversation to Jinhyuk’s day, but lately his answers started sounding sketchy.

“Ah, nothing much, Minkyu had his first ’dumb hetero shoot’, I had lunch with s...” Jinhyuk hissed out like he realized too late that he made a mistake “Some business associates!”

“Business associates” Wooseok scoffed as he narrowed his eyes at Jinhyuk “You never have lunch with anyone except for me. You’re hiding something.”

“I’m telling you, the manager of that girl Minkyu worked with invited me to have lunch together. It’s rude to say no to colleagues and you know it, you always had to have lunch when the models you worked with asked you to” Jinhyuk provided a shaky but plausible explanation.

“Whatever, you’ll spill it sooner or later” Wooseok settled, even though he knew he could’ve kept pushing him and he’d quickly get his answer. There were a lot of other things on his mind at the moment.

“_Anyway_, Minkyu’s becoming a real man, don’t you think?” Jinhyuk switched the subject with a nervous smile “My son’s first editorial with a girl. He looked so flustered, it was kind of cute. Completely different from when you used to do your shoots and it was always the girl who couldn’t get her shit together.”

“Duh, it’s called being straight, Jinhyuk” Wooseok joked, but he was still trying to figure out Jinhyuk’s secret “And when are you going to stop calling everyone your son?! You’re such an old man.”

Behind Jinhyuk’s protests, Wooseok heard a song Seungyoun had introduced him to playing on the turned-down radio. Without even listening to whatever Jinhyuk was going on about, he turned the volume up so he’d hear the song better. Jinhyuk stopped speaking and turned his head to Wooseok, since he rarely ever paid attention to the radio.

“Since when do you listen to this type of music?” Jinhyuk asked after taking some time to listen to the song.

“I’m just trying out new things” Wooseok shrugged. He’d rather die than admit to Jinhyuk that Seungyoun’s “vibe” isn’t quite as bad anymore, because he knew he’d just rub it in his face that “he told him so” and commend him about not giving people a chance before crossing them off.

“Yeah, right, Wooseok trying new things” Jinhyuk snickered “You’re hiding something too, but I know you’d throw me out of the car before you’d tell me.”

“I might tell you my secret if you tell me yours ~” Wooseok sing-songed, even throwing in a cheeky wink.

“Fine, fine, I don’t need to know everything!”

Before Wooseok could continue their usual push-and-pull, his phone vibrated in his pocket.

_woodz_dnwm started following you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope some good ol' Seungyoun backstory can make up for the lack of, well, events, because this story just swept me away from my usual writing style and made me too artsy.  
The next chapter marks the beginning of an important and a little angsty arc, so it will probably take more time to write. Forgive me in advance :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Halfway through the exhibition, Jinhyuk drops a bomb.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the first monster chapter.

When Wooseok came to the gallery the next morning, Seungyoun looked... different.

“What the hell did you do to your hair?!”

“What, I just listened to your advice” Seungyoun defended himself “You said I had rat bangs.”

Wooseok couldn’t believe Seungyoun would even take the joke that seriously, let alone that he would make an effort to put _so much _gel in his bangs to sweep them to the side. He looked like a different person, less cartoonish and somehow more... mature? Stylish? No, Wooseok didn’t want to say _attractive_. But it suited him. From a professional standpoint, it complemented his facial features nicely.

“Well it’s dumb,” is what Wooseok really said “You should just stick to the rat bangs. They match your personality better.”

Seungyoun looked like he was _actually _dejected, but Wooseok learned over time that you can rarely draw a line between joking and being serious with Seungyoun.

“Life is a losing game” he sighed dramatically, but he didn’t touch his hair. With that much gel, it was probably impossible to ruffle up now anyway.

“Since you took my fashion advice, have you also listened to me and looked at my Instagram?” Wooseok teased, hoping the tone had hidden his very real curiosity. He had pretty much spent the night scrolling through Seungyoun’s Instagram, taking whatever crumbs he could get to help him solve the mystery that was Cho Seungyoun.

What he found out was that Seungyoun loved throwing on layers and layers of grunge filters, posting ’artistic’ photos that just looked weird to Wooseok, and taking blurry selfies from weird angles. There were also music recommendations, a few of his older paintings, and some very intriguing pictures of Seungyoun with long hair.

“I just saw a few of the more recent pictures” Seungyoun said in a nonchalant pout “Your selfies suck.”

“Excuse me?” Wooseok said with his mouth wide open in shock. One of Wooseok’s biggest flaws, as Jinhyuk had pointed out many times, was that he knew how to dish it out but he didn’t know how to take it. And truthfully, Wooseok rarely encountered anyone brave enough to talk back to him, so when he did, he took it as a personal challenge.

“You use way too many fucking Snow filters” Seungyoun advised sagely “You literally have only one angle and one pose because it’s the only way for you to look cute and innocent. It’s not nice to deceive your followers like that, Wooseokie.”

“Well, my stupid Snow selfies still get more likes than you.”

“Oh yeah, and how do you know how many likes I get?”

A couple of weeks ago, Wooseok wouldn’t have let Seungyoun win. He was ready to go back and forth until the end of their work hours, and he became the absolute most irritating version of himself when he wanted to beat Seungyoun in an argument. He thrived off of it, he lived to see Seungyoun blush while trying to make excuses for himself.

But somewhere along the way, Wooseok learned it’s okay to occasionally let Seungyoun win. He also learned it’s okay to stare at Seungyoun all he wants, because societal norms couldn’t apply to their situation. Seungyoun stared at Wooseok because he needed to paint, and Wooseok stared at Seungyoun because he was bored when Seungyoun was too focused on painting to pay attention to him. It became normal, comfortable even.

With his new hairstyle, Seungyoun was especially fun to look at today.

“You haven’t asked me Weird question of the day yet.”

“Hmm, let me think...” Seungyoun hummed while he painted “Is my hair actually ugly or were you joking yesterday?”

“What, do you want to pursue modeling now?” Wooseok laughed.

“Haven’t thought about it, but now that you say it...” Seungyoun pretended to think “I’ve got a good ten centimeters on you, so I’d probably do well.”

“No way, being a model isn’t that simple. You’re too hyperactive for it.”

“You didn’t answer my question, though. What should I do with my hair?”

“Just let your bangs grow out a little, dumbass. Why are you so worried about your hair? You looked good even with longer hair.”

Wooseok froze up when he realized what he’d said. “You scrolled _that far_?”

* * *

“I swear to god, if you painted me with rat bangs today...”

Seungyoun turned his canvas around, and Wooseok was surrounded by butterflies.

All around him, in the background as well as on his shoulders and in his hair, there were small but vibrant butterflies. Wooseok noticed they came in various shades of blue and green, except for one slightly bigger yellow butterfly, the only one that settled on Wooseok’s cheek. But in contrast to their magnificence, Wooseok’s facial expression was completely indifferent to them. His eyes were pointed down at the single yellow butterfly on his left cheek, but he seemed almost bored of it.

“Why butterflies?”

“I don’t know why, but I was thinking about Brazil today” Seungyoun said, and Wooseok recalled Seungyoun once told him he spent some time living in Brazil “That’s how I chose the colors. I also saw a lot of butterflies there.”

Wooseok couldn’t quite buy that explanation, but he guessed it was because of his artistic incompetence. During the first week or so of their exhibition, Seungyoun’s paintings were more or less to the point, easy to comprehend even for him. He painted what he saw on Wooseok’s face and inside Wooseok’s mind, sometimes adding weird details like red apples and kimbap. But recently, it seemed like the paintings had a more important message to convey.

“You’re looking at it like you hate it.”

“No, no, it’s beautiful, it’s just...” Wooseok tried to come up with the right question to ask, but the words in his mind got tangled together and he gave up “You should paint me with a Snow filter next time. Raincoat with pink polka-dots, please.”

* * *

When he closed the door of Jinhyuk’s car, Wooseok got a strange urge to talk about work. By that, obviously, he meant Seungyoun and his weird paintings. Something just seemed off, but he couldn’t pinpoint what, because Seungyoun was still his same cheerful self and he still played his soothing music and painted his amazing paintings. Whatever it was, that strange feeling that’s been stirring in Wooseok, maybe Jinhyuk could help him decipher it. Jinhyuk knew him better than he knew himself, after all.

But today of all days, Jinhyuk didn’t ask about Seungyoun’s ’vibes’.

“So, how was work?” Jinhyuk asked, but his voice was too high to be natural.

“It was fine, I guess, same as always” Wooseok tested the waters “Seungyoun said my selfies are bad. Are my selfies really bad? I mean, I get a lot of likes...”

“No, what, they’re great!” Jinhyuk all but shouted “I mean, you could use a little less filters, but...”

Wooseok squinted at him and tried to assess the situation first. Jinhyuk was nervous about something. He was clutching the steering wheel too hard, so hard that there was a wet patch under his hand, and he changed radio stations without even hearing the song, when he usually wasn’t particularly picky about what was playing in the car. Jinhyuk wasn’t the only one who had a killer intuition when it came to his best friend.

“How was your work?” Wooseok decided to give him more time to collect himself.

“Oh, great! I was just, you know, at the office all day, ’cause I kind of let my inbox get cluttered these past few days, so I was only replying to e-mails, really... Sounds unproductive, but that’s actually the biggest part of a manager’s job. I mean, you already know I’m always reading e-mails, but these days no one bothers to call anymore, even if they just have one simple question, I have to write a whole formal letter to answer it! But I guess it has its upsides too, I mean, I have time to sit alone and think about what I want to say...”

“Okay, cut the crap and tell me why you’re shaking from head to toe” Wooseok finally got tired of Jinhyuk’s act.

“Promise you won’t get mad at me?” Jinhyuk breathed out like he finally came up from underwater “I know we said no secrets, but I had to wait for the right time. I wanted to see how things would go first.”

“I’m mad already, but shoot, I guess” Wooseok joked, but he didn’t know whether he should be excited or nervous. Jinhyuk was probably going to tell him the secret he knows he’s been keeping for weeks, but it might not be a good one. He’d never seen Jinhyuk this nervous, so he knew that whatever it was, was extremely important.

“I’m seeing someone.”

It was silent for a while. The playful curiosity he felt just moments ago had already dissolved into something acidic. He could feel his jaw clenching, his eyes and mind empty, and he couldn’t look at Jinhyuk. He felt like his lungs could collapse, but he couldn’t let Jinhyuk see that.

In hindsight, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Jinhyuk had been awfully secretive for the past few weeks, and he was usually the type of person to run to his best friend just to tell him he had met a cute cat on his way to work. Wooseok noticed he was on his phone a lot even outside of his business hours, either texting under the table or making calls that ended the moment Wooseok entered the room.

But Jinhyuk was already 27-years-old without a long-term relationship under his belt, so everyone including Wooseok concluded he was married to his work. That’s why it was easy to assume this was work-related as well, some sort of a secret project he can’t talk about until it’s finalized. Wooseok secretly hoped that that hypothetical project included him, that Jinhyuk wanted to surprise him with a big booking, but the worst-case scenario was one of his younger colleagues getting the spotlight again and Jinhyuk wanting to keep it from him so he won’t feel like a failure.

Obviously his imagination was too vivid and his guesses too optimistic.

“For how long?”

“Two months now. Sorry I didn’t tell you earlier, I didn’t know if it was going to be anything serious.”

Two months. He should’ve been mad at himself for not noticing earlier, for being so focused on himself that he couldn’t even see this major change in his best friend until recently. Instead, he was angry at Jinhyuk. For blindsiding him, for excluding him from such a big part of his life, for...

“But you know now?” he said mockingly.  
“Yeah, I really like him. We’re both serious about this” Jinhyuk admitted “You’re not happy, though.”

“No, I am, I really am. It’s just a shock. You haven’t dated anyone for more than a month since that one fake girlfriend in high school” Wooseok chuckled. He knew his excuse didn’t sound even remotely honest. He knew he hadn’t even tried.

“Well, I didn’t see it coming either, honestly, you know me and my family were all prepared for me to die alone, but this really feels different. I know I shouldn’t say things like that after just two months, but he’s someone I want in my future.”  
“Who is he? How did you meet?”

“His name is Sejin, Lee Sejin” Jinhyuk started with a fondness Wooseok had never heard in his voice before “He’s a photographer I met when he was working with Minkyu. We’re the same age, too.”

“That sounds nice” Wooseok said even though he felt close to vomiting “Is he the reason you’ve been smiling so much, and spending so much time with me? Because you felt sorry for me?”

First, it was mockery. Then it was an interrogation. Then it was just plain accusation. Wooseok wanted to cry because friends aren’t supposed to act like this, friends aren’t supposed to be selfish, best friends are supposed to _understand_, but in the end, how could he understand Jinhyuk if he didn’t even know him? If he managed to hide this, who knows what else Jinhyuk was hiding from him? For someone who felt so much, Jinhyuk was surprisingly good at staying silent when he needed to.

And for someone who showed so little emotion, Wooseok was surprisingly bad at controlling them when he needed to.

“He makes me so, so happy, Wooseok” Jinhyuk sighed, and Wooseok could hear a desperation in it that broke his heart “I wish you could be happy for me too. I’ve been through a lot, you know.”

He can’t take it out on Jinhyuk. He can’t take it out on Jinhyuk. He can’t take it out on Jinhyuk. But he couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. The only thing he could do is stay quiet. Because that’s what Jinhyuk always did when he had the words to destroy their friendship.

“Whatever, you don’t have to be” Jinhyuk resigned. They kept driving in silence, and even the song on the radio wasn’t a good enough distraction. Wooseok’s mind was still shut. He knew this was only a beginning, but he couldn’t think about a single thing other than the current moment. The current moment that felt like right after the storm when you’re left in ruins with nothing but an exhausted heart.

He didn’t show it, but Jinhyuk was angry. For the first time in his life, he was able to feel anger towards his best friend. But Jinhyuk had nothing to do with that anger. Jinhyuk was pathetic and he was used to staying silent through Wooseok’s childish fits. Even now, when he loves someone else, some things never change.

* * *

Once Wooseok was alone in the darkness of his bedroom, he finally crumbled. His mind wanted to go to a happier place, to seventeen years ago, when he had just met a lanky upperclassman who helped him get up from the ground and gave him a band-aid.

Wooseok was seven and Jinhyuk was ten when he realized Jinhyuk was the kindest person in this world.

Even though he was already in fourth grade and Wooseok was in first, he chose to hang out with Wooseok during recess. Jinhyuk told him he’d always wanted a younger brother and that he didn’t like playing with the boys from his class because they were too mean. Wooseok felt the same way.

Wooseok was ten and Jinhyuk was thirteen when middle school separated them for the first time.

Going to school without Jinhyuk was hard. He was always the teacher’s pet, he did whatever was asked of him, but he couldn’t make friends. He didn’t _want_ to make friends, even though the kids from his class had stopped being mean to him once they found out he hung out with an upperclassman. He only wanted to play with his hyung, _his _Jinhyuk-hyung, but Jinhyuk had started telling him about his new friends and complaining about how hard math was.

Even so, he never stopped picking Wooseok up from school. Even Wooseok’s mom had gotten used to their routine – every day, Jinhyuk would wait for Wooseok after class and deliver him to her doorstep, and even after Jinhyuk had eaten dinner with them, little Wooseok didn’t want to let go of his hand.

Wooseok was fourteen when he realized Jinhyuk was in love with him.

It was about that same time that he started hearing his classmates talk about girls and began, little by little, comprehending the concepts of crushes and dating. Years went by and the older he got, the more convinced he was that Jinhyuk was in love with him all along. He could see it in the way Jinhyuk looked at him, with a fondness that no one else had ever felt for him, and in the way Jinhyuk loved feeling like he was protecting him. When they went to concerts together, Jinhyuk would stand behind Wooseok and wrap his arms around his shoulders to shield him from the crowd. The only time he’d ever seen Jinhyuk angry was when people spoke badly about Wooseok – the usually peaceful and tolerant Jinhyuk would go ballistic in a second, without Wooseok even having to say anything. Jinhyuk’s love was pure but so, so unfortunate.

It raised a storm of confusing feelings in Wooseok. When he was fourteen, he found it fascinating. It was something precious and unspoken between them, and Wooseok’s hope that Jinhyuk would never start a conversation about it, was fulfilled until the end. Everything he knew about love, to this day even, he learned from Jinhyuk. It would probably forever be the closest he came to love.

At seventeen, he thought it was pathetic, and he resented Jinhyuk for tainting him with something so pointless. He was a twenty-year-old still stuck on a highschooler, even though he was in college in another country at that point. When he turned twenty himself, he realized it was an honor to be loved. And in a world where love was based on convenience and respect mattered more than feelings, it was an honor to love, too.

Sometimes, Wooseok wondered if the way he was possessive about Jinhyuk’s feelings meant that he returned them. He knew they had a connection that he couldn’t describe or replicate with anyone else, and that they belonged together in some way or another. But that connection that was based on co-dependency was what made it impossible for Wooseok to think about Jinhyuk in a romantic or sexual way. In the end, he concluded that forcing a romantic relationship would be an insult to what they already had. Rather than kissing him, Wooseok just wanted to be sure he’d never have to let go of Jinhyuk’s hand.

Even so, the ten years of observing Jinhyuk’s love had taught Wooseok three important things.

One, he needed to experience that type of love himself to be able to understand it fully. Two, he never, ever wanted to do that.

Three, he loved being adored. In a disgusting, selfish way, he enjoyed knowing that he means so much to Jinhyuk. It wasn’t a temporary ego boost – it gave him a worth that not many people had. Jinhyuk’s love was much different than looking perfect or being loved by many people, though Wooseok needed that too. For your best friend to suffer because of you for so long, you had to be something special. Wooseok hated himself every time he had such thoughts, but he couldn’t deny that he needed that kind of validation from Jinhyuk. His love made their friendship special, but Wooseok never wanted to feel that pain on his skin, even if it was the only way he’d get to truly love someone.

Even at twenty-four, Wooseok still couldn’t understand why Jinhyuk did that to himself.

* * *

Wooseok entered the glass box without saying ’good morning’. His hair was a mess, he got two hours of sleep the previous night, and he didn’t even have enough energy to put on any make-up. So there he was, standing in front of Seungyoun in his absolute worst state, bare-faced and worn out by his own emotions, and the only thing left to hope for was that his glasses hid the redness of his eyes.

“Are you sick?” was the first thing Seungyoun asked, and with genuine concern in his voice. But Wooseok couldn’t deal with pleasantries today.

“No, I just look like crap without make-up, Seungyoun” he grumbled and sat on his chair.

“You look exactly the same, honestly I’m not sure why you even bother to put on make-up” Seungyoun said sincerely “You look like crap because something’s bothering you.”

“Then it’s none of your fucking business” Wooseok spat out his favorite automated response.

“Come on, Wooseokie, you can use this a unique opportunity to get some much-needed free therapy!” Seungyoun tried to lighten up the atmosphere, although he didn’t know if that was the smartest move at the moment “Or you can just get it out of your system and I won’t say anything. Whatever works for you.”

Wooseok couldn’t remember exactly when Seungyoun started giving him nicknames like Seok and Wooseokie and when it stopped being a surprise. Hearing that particular one right now ticked him off, because it’s what Jinhyuk often called him. He considered Seungyoun’s offer for a moment, and it concerned him that he stooped low enough to even _considered _opening up to someone.

But if he’s going to open up to anyone, it can only be Jinhyuk or Seungyoun.

The reasons were completely opposite. Jinhyuk had already seen the worst of Wooseok. Nothing could surprise him anymore, he always knew the sensible thing to do and gave the older brother-type of advice that Wooseok found useful. Seungyoun, on the other hand, was someone who always tried his best to understand people instead of judging them. He’s only known Wooseok for a month, so he could look at the situation more objectively, and Wooseok was under no obligation to see him ever again once their exhibit ended. The sense of caution he had with strangers had long left him when it came to Seungyoun.

Seungyoun patiently endured the silence of Wooseok’s mental battle with himself, until Wooseok finally opened his mouth.

“If, hypothetically, someone’s best friend is happy, but that person is, hypothetically, not happy for them... is that person being unfair? Is he, um, they, are they a bad friend and a bad person?”

Wooseok couldn’t believe he was asking _Seungyoun_ of all people for advice. He never knew there would come a day when he would half-voluntarily open up to Seungyoun, but it’s not like there was anyone else he could talk to about this. Once he started speaking, he realized how much it had been weighing down on him, throughout those ten years. It was always something he pushed to the back of his mind, so there were a lot of emotions to finally be untangled.

“Hm, depends, why is the best friend happy?”

“He’s dating someone.”

“Is he dating some asshole? Or do you like your best friend?”

“No and no. But he liked me” Wooseok completely forgot to keep up his ’hypothetical’ shield, but it was just for show anyway “For years and years, before this Sejin guy popped out of nowhere.”

“Wow, don’t you think you’re being selfish?” Seungyoun tried to sound as non-offensive as possible, because he knew it would make Wooseok go back into his shell, but he was actually intrigued by the words coming out of Wooseok’s mouth. Wooseok could see it in his eyes again – whenever he’d get the courage to actually look him in the eyes – he wanted to understand.

“I know I’m being selfish” Wooseok accepted, and he sounded angry at himself “But I got so used to being the one he loved. Fuck, I sound like such a piece of shit, but it was our thing, you know?”

“You’re such a narcissist” Seungyoun laughed “I’ve been in his shoes, you know. It’s not as pretty as it looks from your side.”

“You have?”

“Yeah, in high school, I had to fall for my straight best friend, of course, because I’m fucking cliché like that. And it was pretty damn painful, living in constant fear of ruining our friendship, and how he was always there but never close enough to reach.”

Wooseok needed to process a few things. First of all, Seungyoun didn’t show the slightest bit of surprise at Wooseok’s talk about Jinhyuk being gay. He was like them, maybe not gay, but at the very least bi. But he’d have to store that information for later, because what’s more important is that Wooseok had unknowingly personally offended Seungyoun by being so self-obsessed. Seungyoun’s best friend was probably a much better guy, who didn’t have thoughts like that, and now Seungyoun finally knew what a shitty person he really was.

“Are you mad at him for that?”

“No, I could never, I never was. He’s my best friend to this day” Seungyoun corrected him “I’m mad at _you_. For acting like a prick when I know you’re not. You’re not sad about this because your pride is hurt.”

“What if I am? What if I’m so vain that I just need to be adored, even if it makes my best friend miserable?” Wooseok asked spitefully, but it was directed more at himself than at Seungyoun.

Seungyoun didn’t know anything about him. He was one of those people who wanted to see the best in everyone, so he insisted that Wooseok was still a good person, but how could he be? After how he acted with Jinhyuk yesterday? No, this was the real Wooseok. He only cared about himself and he couldn’t empathize with other people, even if it’s his best friend.

“Sure, you can go with that” Seungyoun shrugged “Or you can admit that you’re a little baby who doesn’t like to share and is afraid his best friend’s gonna forget him.”

“Fuck you, that’s not it” Wooseok laughed. Okay, maybe there was a little bit of that too, but Wooseok doubted even he was childish enough to feel so broken just because of that. There was still no valid explanation of his feelings, other than him being a douchebag.

“Why can’t you just be honest with yourself?” Seungyoun suddenly asked, and Wooseok was ready to get angry, but he listened anyway “I think you’re the kind of guy who likes to overthink and ends up circling around the simplest explanation. Usually because that explanation would change the image of yourself you have in your mind.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Aristotle?”

“Okay, you made me say it, I’m gonna say it, but you can’t get blame me” Seungyoun put his hands up in defense “You think that you’re so different from everyone else and that, in the anomalous case you have an _emotion_, there has to be some bizarre meaning behind it. But people just feel things because they’re _human_, that’s what humans do, and newsflash, you’re also a human.”

Wooseok took a step back in his mind. Seungyoun was still painting, completely unaffected by what he’d just said, and he didn’t even have the time to wait for Wooseok’s reaction. Not because he didn’t care about hurting Wooseok’s feelings, but because he didn’t treat him like a child. He knew Wooseok was strong enough to hear it, so he focused only on helping him.

He looked at Seungyoun, for a long time. His hair was swept to the side again today (apparently he’s keeping that style now), and he looked so peaceful while painting that just looking at him was therapeutic. It was so weird, the thing they had going on. Seungyoun really was able to see through a person’s soul, and Wooseok wondered if it’s something he learned through his art or if that’s just who he is. He tried to think about his words, but his mind was blurred. He was focused on Seungyoun the way Seungyoun was focused on his painting. Seungyoun loved painting. And it clicked.

_Love_. What he thought only Jinhyuk could give him. What he thought he couldn’t experience unless he’s the one being loved. The disgusting, meaningless word he avoided at all costs. But then he had a different type of love in front of his eyes – love wasn’t only Jinhyuk and Wooseok. Sometimes it was Seungyoun and painting. But Wooseok didn’t have anything he loved like Seungyoun loved painting, and he didn’t have anyone he loved like Jinhyuk loved him. He was left devoid of all love. And he was human.

“I’m pathetic” Wooseok announced, and Seungyoun knew right away that he hit the jackpot.

“No, say it. Say what you’re thinking” Seungyoun encouraged him gently. Maybe he really should’ve become a therapist, because even when he was scolding Wooseok, he made it surprisingly easy for him to express his feelings. So Wooseok said it, in his tiniest voice, and it was embarrassing, but it was liberating.

“Who’s gonna love me if not him?”

The revelation brought small but scorching tears to his eyes, and even though he’d already opened up verbally, this is where he drew the line. He buried his face in the sleeves of his sweater, hoping Seungyoun wouldn’t look away from his painting. He absolutely can’t see him this vulnerable. He’d already let himself get over-emotional over a dumb thing, but letting someone see him _cry _was a whole new territory he wasn’t ready to explore today. Or ever.

He heard Seungyoun put his paintbrush down gently.

“Hey, I can’t paint your pretty face if you keep hiding it in that sweater. Come on, look at me. I don’t care that you’re crying. Seriously, cry as much as you need to.”

“Fuck off” Wooseok hiccupped, but he didn’t show his face.

“He still loves you, Wooseokie” Seungyoun said gently “He loves you in the way he’s supposed to love you, as a best friend. The same way you love him. That’s not going to change.”

Wooseok wasn’t crying, not exactly. His eyes stung, but it’s always been hard for him to cry. Even though the tears didn’t flow, he couldn’t look at Seungyoun, afraid that seeing a soft look of concern on Seungyoun’s face would make him break. He couldn’t look into his eyes and get jealous again when he finds something he’ll never have – stupid, but meaningful love.

If only he could understand what it meant for him. He knew what it meant to Jinhyuk. It meant silently enduring, protecting, yearning for something impossible. He kind of knew what it meant to Seungyoun too. It meant dedication, putting everything on the line, being honest about who you are. Maybe he was just at the age when he couldn’t pretend he doesn’t want that anymore. Or maybe it was just something he learned about while watching Seungyoun paint.

“I’m not gonna tell you everyone has a soulmate and you’ll surely meet someone great one day and get married or whatever” Seungyoun tried again “But I can tell you you’re not unlovable, and you’re not incapable of love either. It’s just that it’s not something you can force. You can’t force him to stay in love with you if his heart is with someone else, just like you couldn’t force yourself to return his feelings. Now can I see you, Wooseokie? I really need to earn my paycheck here, you know.”

Like a little turtle testing the waters, ready to go back into its shell at any moment, Wooseok raised his head and looked directly at Seungyoun. If that look wasn’t so full of anger, it might have been cute.

“Stop calling me Wooseokie.”

Seungyoun was smiling widely at him, a paintbrush back in his hand and moving gently against the canvas. Instead of his worries, maybe that’s what Wooseok should be thinking about today.

“You’re such a baby” Seungyoun teased “See, you’re not a vain asshole. You’re just an insecure asshole.”

“And you’re a dumb asshole who should shut the fuck up” Wooseok laughed bitterly, but then he added a quiet, tentative ’thank you’.

“Thank _you_, for finally talking to me. See, aren’t I a great listener?”

“You’re great at calling me out on my bullshit, I’ll give you that.” Maybe that’s what Wooseok needed more of in his life. Something Jinhyuk couldn’t always give him. Maybe it was something he had to learn to endure, now that he was twenty-four.

“A humble knight lives to serve” Seungyoun bowed dramatically and Wooseok had to laugh. Who knew Seungyoun could be that helpful.

* * *

The painting he saw that day was nothing like he expected.

He expected Seungyoun to jump on the opportunity to paint him differently, with his eye bags and unconcealed face and maybe even tears in his eyes. He expected Seungyoun to perfectly portray all his misery and show the viewers how good he was at capturing reality and human emotions.

Instead, what he got was a painting with the raincoat filter, with pink polka-dots.

He was fascinated by the way Seungyoun gave an illusion of translucency to the coat, he didn’t know that was possible to do. Wooseok wondered how much time it must’ve taken him to master that texture. The background was light grey, like the sky during a summer drizzle, with Wooseok’s milky white face contrasting it. The other Wooseok stared at him from the canvas with innocent and sparkling eyes, and he even had a rosy little pout. It looked scarily similar to one of the selfies he posted recently, but he decided Seungyoun could be spared the teasing today.

“I looked nothing like this today. I looked like shit.”

“Yeah, and there were no butterflies in the gallery yesterday, and you definitely never had kimbap instead of cheeks” Seungyoun explained as if it was the dumbest comment to make “I never said I’d paint realistically every day. I can paint what I want, and I want you to have your raincoat on in case that cloud above your head starts raining on you.”

“Didn’t you say my Snow filter selcas suck though?” Wooseok couldn’t help but giggle.

“And I stand by that, but you asked for a raincoat painting yesterday” Seungyoun said, a little bashfully “Besides, I wanted to paint something to cheer you up today.”

When Wooseok looked up at Seungyoun, he felt _warmth _spreading through his chest languidly, like those little circles that appear when kids throw a pebble into the lake. Seungyoun wanted to make him feel better. Seungyoun wanted Wooseok to be happy. Seungyoun was considerate and kind and he had a comical tendency to take Wooseok’s jokes literally. Instead of a trainwreck with uncombed hair and washed-out skin, Seungyoun gave him a _raincoat_ so he doesn’t get caught in the metaphorical rain of his mind.

When you feel like you’ve lost something big, you start to think that nothing else is worth keeping anymore, and because of that you start doing unexpected things. When Jinhyuk left Korea for college, Wooseok let his grades slip up for an entire semester. He didn’t see the point in having good grades anymore if he’s already lost the only other that had any importance to him. Similarly, today, Wooseok let go of his untouchable reputation and opened up to Seungyoun, because who cares how the rest of the world perceives you when your best friend doesn’t even love you anymore.

So if that boundary has already been erased, he had nothing to lose by taking just one more step. And that step lead him straight into Seungyoun’s arms.

He didn’t even think about it before leaning in. But he had no other way to show his gratitude, and Seungyoun had spent the last nine hours painting this for him, so he thought a hug was due. What he noticed was that not only was Seungyoun’s body warm, he also _smelled _warm. It must’ve been some expensive cologne, but it smelled woody and comforting, and it reminded Wooseok of Seungyoun’s voice. Seungyoun was stiff, probably because it came as a shock, but Wooseok was just the right height to feel Seungyoun’s heart speeding up against his chest. He smiled at that, like the devil he is, because he was capable of surprising Seungyoun like that. He took pride in the fact that not even Seungyoun couldn’t read him fully.

While taking note of all those little things, he noticed he might’ve lingered in the hug for a second too long. What’s worse was that, once he started pulling away, he realized he enjoyed that hug, that he _wanted _to hug Seungyoun more, even if he was too dumbfounded to hug him back. What would it have felt like if Seungyoun was the one who hugged him, if he wrapped his arms around him so that it was even warmer? The horror of having that thought made him sprint out of the gallery without saying goodbye.

Why did he do that? Wooseok _hated _skinship, he hated when people invaded his personal space, let alone touched him. Even with Jinhyuk, one of the very few people who had the permission to touch Wooseok, he was rarely the one to initiate it. He especially disliked hugs, because they felt suffocating. He liked his mother’s hugs, since she’s soft and smaller than him and always treats him gently, but with taller people, his head was always twisted into a painful angle and it felt like they had the power to crush his entire body if they wanted to.

So why did hugging _Seungyoun _feel like something he needed today? Why didn’t his body even consult his mind before doing that? He wanted to talk to Jinhyuk about it.

He wanted to tell Jinhyuk about the raincoat painting and how annoying it is that Seungyoun now calls him ’Wooseokie’ too, even though he told both of them he hates that nickname. He’d even admit to Jinhyuk that he was wrong about Seungyoun and that he was actually a nice guy, even if it meant having to hear a lecture about jumping to conclusions, he’d do it if it gave him a chance to talk to Jinhyuk.

But Jinhyuk wasn’t waiting for him today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you can understand Wooseok, he's just a tiny babie but he's working on it :(  
Anyway, I REALLY want to hear your opinions on this chapter because it was SO DIFFICULT to write, I feel like I've spent 937931 hours editing it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *paints a tiny lil raincoat on each and every one of you and hides in the corner because my eyes are sweating from editing this 94385 times*

Wooseok couldn’t remember the last time a whole day passed without Jinhyuk.

It was disorienting, because almost every event in Wooseok’s life was followed by a quiet afterthought of “I can’t wait to tell Jinhyuk”. Wooseok knew he didn’t want to get used to this. The sun would keep rising even if he never heard from Jinhyuk again, but that simply wasn’t an option to him. No matter how long it takes him to mentally prepare for it, he needed to find a solution. And this time, he’ll need to be the one that swallows his pride, reaches out first and delivers a sincere apology.

But he wasn’t ready to face Jinhyuk yet, not before fully understanding his own feelings first. The only way to do that, he figured, was to put some distance between them that would give them both enough space to think. So he made peace with the fact that he’ll have to spend some time without Jinhyuk’s constant presence, and focused only on making that time as short as possible.

Wooseok had never looked forward to going to work like he did that day. Was he becoming a workaholic like Jinhyuk? Well, he always liked to keep busy, but today more than ever, he needed something that would force the cruel time to pass faster, and only work could do so. The gallery, or rather the glass house, was the only place where no insecurity could reach him. It was an isolated universe, one where Jinhyuk had never fallen in love with him and nothing hurt. Wooseok took comfort in knowing that that kind of place can be made even in this world, with nothing but four big glass panels, two chairs and a cheerful painter.

It probably wasn’t the glass house or the warm lighting of the gallery that made Wooseok feel this way, though he had a special appreciation for them. If he had to be honest, it was probably the painter. Seungyoun’s existence in itself was inarguably distracting, which was just what Wooseok needed, but he was also the kind of person anyone would want by their side during a hard time. Wooseok didn’t know what their relationship could be defined as, if he’ll ever even see Seungyoun outside these four walls, or if all of this was going to turn into just a peculiar anecdote in a month. The magic of Cho Seungyoun was that none of those things mattered.

“How are you feeling today?” Seungyoun asked with a small but hopeful smile. He must’ve noticed that Wooseok was bare-faced again and that he didn’t exactly get a healthy amount of sleep, but at least his hair was neater and he didn’t look three seconds away from passing out.

“Slightly less dead than yesterday” Wooseok said with a chuckle “Still kinda empty, though.” After yesterday, there was no point in lying to Seungyoun anymore, but he didn’t want to start a serious conversation early in the morning.

“It takes some time” Seungyoun nodded thoughtfully while mixing colors on his palette “But you’ll get used to it.”

“To feeling like shit?” Wooseok huffed out a laugh.

“_No_” Seungyoun reprimanded his negative attitude “To this... I guess, _change_ in your dynamics. But it’s probably not even going to be that big of a change.”

“How would you even know that? You don’t know Jinhyuk.”

“But I know what kind of effect you have on people” Seungyoun said with a smug smile “He didn’t baby you all these years just because he liked you.”

Perhaps it was still too early for Seungyoun’s bullshit.

“You’re full of shit as always” Wooseok groaned as he rubbed his eyes wearily “What fucking _effect _do I have on people?”

“Nope, you’re not gonna hear it from me. It’s just gonna go to that big head of yours.”

“Fine, then don’t tell me, you made it up anyway.”

Wooseok was still too tired of all the emotions he went through in the last twenty-four hours to actually feel curiosity, which was alarming to Seungyoun because he’d usually pester him until he got his way. But maybe he could choose to go down without a fight, just this once. Maybe that’s what Wooseok needed today.

“You make people want to spoil you” he managed to say “Because you really don’t need anyone, it makes people want to feel needed by you. You’re a fucking brat, but you somehow make it impossible not to forgive.”

Wooseok’s head peeked up with newfound interest, and it reminded Seungyoun of a cat’s ears twitching when they hear any small sound. His eyebrows were raised in what Seungyoun thought was half-surprise, half a sign of the teasing that is to come. He already regretted saying it, because Wooseok had an amazing ability to twist his words however he pleased.

“Are you saying that because you think compliments make me feel better?” Wooseok accused him.

“No, ew, I’d rather die than feed your gigantic ego on purpose” Seungyoun made a (hilarious) sour face “I’m just telling the sad truth. It’s really annoying.”

Wooseok didn’t know he had enough energy to chuckle, but he did. The magic of Cho Seungyoun was that he was the only person who could insult Wooseok and get away with it, even if it’s just friendly banter. He was also the only person Wooseok could stand on a day like this, when he was ready to bite someone’s head off just for looking at him, because he was the only one who could make him laugh in the middle of his misery.

“Did you think about what you want to do next?”

“I have no idea” Wooseok admitted and dropped his gaze to the floor “I guess I have to apologize. But I don’t know what else to say.”

“Do you know what you’re apologizing for?”

“Gosh, this is like kindergarten” Wooseok rolled his eyes “I’m sorry for reacting the way I did to his news, because I really should’ve been happy. I’m sorry for not even thinking about my words first. I’m sorry for being selfish, shit, I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry that he even had to – “

_That he had to fall in love with me. That he had to love me for ten years. That he could never focus on himself because he was too busy taking care of me. That he wasted so much love on someone who doesn’t deserve it._

But he didn’t say anything, because hearing those words out loud would break his heart again. Seungyoun probably knew what he was going to say anyway. And Seungyoun stayed silent too.

Wooseok wasn’t mad when Seungyoun took some time to paint. He wasn’t even afraid of being judged, because he knew he wasn’t going to be. Seungyoun was simply thinking, trying to understand, and in Wooseok’s eyes, it seemed like understanding and painting were the same thing to Seungyoun. Like the only way for him to truly see this world was by putting it on canvas first. It was his special lens that made even the invisible look clear, and Wooseok wondered if that was a blessing or a burden to an artist.

“How do you feel when you paint?” he asked all of a sudden.

“Huh, where’s that coming from?”

“I’m just tired of this topic” Wooseok shrugged “It’s easier for me if I just listen to your blabbering.”  
“You know it wouldn’t kill you to admit you’re curious about me, right?” Seungyoun giggled like a schoolgirl, probably trying to annoy Wooseok on purpose. Out of all the big and small things Wooseok had grown to appreciate about Seungyoun, his ability to change the atmosphere in a moment when needed was definitely his favorite.

“What’s there to be curious about?” Wooseok went along with it “You talk about yourself all the time, even when no one asks you to. You leave nothing to the imagination.”

“Well, obviously you’re curious about how I feel when I paint, that’s why you asked me about it.”

“And?” Wooseok turned the tables with a quieter, smoother voice, and now he was winning “Won’t you satisfy my curiosity, then?”

Okay, maybe Wooseok had fun occasionally flirting with Seungyoun. It was just so easy to slip into their “fights”, and it came naturally to him. Which is not to say that he was always a flirt – that seemed more like Seungyoun’s forte – but it was definitely a part of his humor. And besides, Seungyoun’s reactions were always priceless – it was the only guaranteed way to beat him.

“Of course, I aim to please” Seungyoun was able to return the ball this time, even mirroring Wooseok’s provocative smile. That was a new thing for Wooseok. But straight after saying that, Seungyoun’s face turned coy again, and Wooseok wondered if he was imagining things.

“When I paint, hm...” Seungyoun answered the actual question after thinking for a few moments “Most of all I feel happy, I’d say? If I had to choose just one word, then definitely ’happy’.”

_Love – something that makes you happy._ Wooseok added that first definition to his dictionary. But it was contradictory to everything he’d ever known. The love he knew, it was all broken glances from afar and giving up after fighting a pointless battle for too long. Was that not true love? Maybe there needed to be more categories, maybe love wasn’t simple enough to define. The complexity of it only frustrated him more.

“But it also makes me feel like I’m searching for something” Seungyoun continued “Like there’s this perfect painting that I’m going to paint one day, but I’m trying to make today that day, and I’m searching for that perfect painting in this canvas. Of course, I know there’s no such thing as perfection in art, and that’s why it’s fun to search for it. It’s like when you get lost in a new city while searching for a particular address, but you end up finding so many other things along the way. And it’s an endless city, so you just explore it again and again every day.”

_Love – something you can never have enough of. Something that always surprises you._

“Does that make any sense?”

Wooseok was surprised to see Seungyoun slightly bashful. Even though he was a very sincere person, maybe he wasn’t used to talking about things that were so precious to him. He remembered what Seungyoun had said about how he treated painting when he was younger – it was something he couldn’t share with anyone, almost a secret but not completely.

“It’s interesting” Wooseok responded “I don’t know, I never thought much about what it’s like to be an artist, but now I find it kind of fascinating. You can keep talking, if you want to.”

Seungyoun was so obviously surprised by Wooseok’s blatant interest in him, or his art, to be more precise. It’s not like Wooseok never asked him about his life, and it wasn’t unlike Seungyoun to speak about it unprompted either; after all, he never considered himself a secretive person. Like everyone, he had things he didn’t go out saying to complete strangers, and even things he kept only to himself, but painting wasn’t one of those things. It was simply something no one’s ever asked him about. So it was weird that that question came to him first from Wooseok, who wasn’t even an artist himself, and has only recently come into his life.

“I mean, if I tried I’d probably be able to talk about it for hours, but I’m not that good with words” Seungyoun dismissed, and yet he still found himself _wanting _to share his feelings with Wooseok. He wanted to introduce him to that world, to _his _world, maybe even as repayment to Wooseok for being honest with him yesterday.

So he started talking, and most of it was probably nonsense that was of no value to Wooseok, but he still listened carefully, and Seungyoun could see that he was thinking about it too. Once he stopped trying to find the right words and stopped searching for a reaction in Wooseok’s eyes, Seungyoun found a story flowing freely out of him, and he got excited, as if he was reminiscing about an old friend. He didn’t know it, but it was precious to Wooseok.

* * *

Three days passed without Jinhyuk.

Wooseok wanted to tell Jinhyuk what Seungyoun had told him about painting. He wanted to make fun of him for being a dork, he wanted Jinhyuk to tease him about talking about Seungyoun so much, he wanted to be in that car and listen to Jinhyuk butchering whatever song was playing on the radio.

Because he was pitiful enough to imagine conversations, he decided it was time to think of solutions instead. He still didn’t know exactly what he should say to Jinhyuk, but he wasn’t going to script a conversation with his best friend. He just needed to see him, and their hearts would naturally open up and understand each other. The way they’d always done before.

Jinhyuk was the first person Wooseok came out to as gay. He was also the first to find out about his dream of being a model, the first (and only) to visit him when he didn’t come to school for a week because his parents got divorced, he was even the one who gave him “the talk” (it was probably the most embarrassing part of Wooseok’s eighteenth birthday). In those times, they were honest with each other. This was another rite of passage he needed to go through with Jinhyuk.

Jinhyuk got over his first love, and Wooseok was starting to understand what “love” really meant. Even when Jinhyuk was a step ahead of him, that step was still only as long as their linked arms, and they were still growing up together.

He’ll call him right now. That was the final decision. It was just as his mother always told him – you have to rip the band-aid quickly. Besides, he didn’t even know how Jinhyuk was dealing with it all. Did he feel as broken as Wooseok, or was he just angry? Did he even miss talking to Wooseok? Was he wondering about him the same way Wooseok was now wondering about him? He couldn’t leave Jinhyuk alone in a rough patch, couldn’t be the reason for his sadness any longer. Maybe Wooseok was just being clingy – three days wasn’t really _that_ long – but even during Jinhyuk’s busy college days, it wasn’t something they did. So he was selfish again, and he couldn’t wait.

His fingers trembled for a second while he was searching for Jinhyuk’s name in his contacts. It was 8 pm, so Jinhyuk shouldn’t be working anymore, but he definitely wasn’t asleep either. But what if he doesn’t pick up? What if he’s out with Sejin and just declines Wooseok’s call? What if he’s at home alone and just lets his phone ring until Wooseok gives up? There was no time to think about the ’what ifs’. If Jinhyuk doesn’t take the call today, he’ll try again tomorrow, and the day after that, and he’ll just do what he knows best – annoy Jinhyuk until he gets what he wants.

After staring at the contact page for an unnecessarily long amount of time, he pressed the ’call’ button and carefully brought the phone to his ear, as if it could burn him if he holds it too close. It began ringing.

It took five rings for Jinhyuk to pick up, because Wooseok was counting. Jinhyuk didn’t say anything, and Wooseok’s breath got caught in his throat. He was waiting.

“Hey” he finally said, but he wondered if Jinhyuk could even hear him “It’s me.”

There was only static noise. A reminder to try harder.

“I wanted to talk to you, but I don’t want to do it over the phone. Can you meet me tomorrow?”

It was quiet again, but Wooseok knew what this silence meant. Even when they couldn’t see the other’s face, they were experts in each other silences. Right now, Jinhyuk was thinking.

“Okay.”

What brought him relief wasn’t the answer itself, it was just hearing Jinhyuk’s voice. Jinhyuk was still there, he was listening, he _wanted _to listen. The given chance brought Wooseok a newfound hope.

“Okay” Wooseok repeated, suddenly feeling braver “Let’s meet at that café in front of the company, 7 pm.”

Jinhyuk hung up without saying goodbye, but Wooseok knew he’ll be there.

* * *

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Wooseok had never been awkward around Jinhyuk. It was so wrong, so unnatural, but it was hard to speak properly when there were so many thoughts pushing each other to the side, adding their weight to the atmosphere. He couldn’t expect Jinhyuk to talk first.

“I came to apologize” he finally said “I was wrong. The way I acted was wrong. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”

“Whoa, am I dreaming right now?” Jinhyuk said with poisonous sarcasm, but Wooseok knew he deserved it “Did his majesty Kim Wooseok just _apologize_? To a mere commoner who exists only to worship him? That would be a first.”

And that’s when Wooseok realized something even more disgusting, something that threatened to break him.

The message he sent to Jinhyuk that night was that his purpose was to love Wooseok without asking for anything in return. It was just a given, something Wooseok was entitled to. Jinhyuk’s happiness mattered less than Wooseok’s, Jinhyuk himself was a side-character even in his own life, and Wooseok was the sun he was destined to revolve around. It’s not what he meant, not what he thought at any point of his life, but that’s how he made Jinhyuk see himself.

He couldn’t do anything about it now. As much as he wanted to cry, to hate himself for making Jinhyuk feel that way, even that would be selfish. It would make everything about him again, but he had twenty-four hours of every day to think about himself. Today he was here to understand how Jinhyuk felt. So he swallowed the bitterness of Jinhyuk’s pain and tried again.

“Yes, I apologized, and I’ll do it a hundred times again, because I really am sorry” he said with a strange force in his voice “If I were you, I probably wouldn’t have even given myself a second chance.”

“So why am I here, proving once again how stupid I am...” Jinhyuk asked, but it was directed at himself.

“Because you’re my best friend” Wooseok answered for him “And that’s all that matters.”

Those words changed something in Jinhyuk, in both of them. Because it was that simple. It was Jinhyuk and Wooseok, Wooseok and Jinhyuk, and when they remembered that, they felt like they were seven and ten again. Only this time, Wooseok was the one offering the band-aid, because he was also the one who accidentally pushed Jinhyuk to scrape his knee.

“Is there anything else you wanted to talk about?” Jinhyuk asked, and it sounded like he was exhausted just from being around Wooseok, which hurt more than any words ever could. When Wooseok was speaking, Jinhyuk’s cold eyes didn’t leave him, but when he wasn’t, Jinhyuk barely spared him a glance and chose to focus on his milk tea instead. He didn’t know if he should accept Wooseok’s apology, he didn’t know if being “best friends” was enough to fix everything anymore. But seventeen years of friendship isn’t something you give up without a fight.

Wooseok could hear the hidden message too – Jinhyuk was pleading. ’Come on Wooseok, make me stop feeling like a fool for wanting to forgive you. Give me a reason to trust you again.’ But Wooseok knew there was no reason strong enough, at least not a rational one. They were fighting for this because they wanted to.

“Do you even know how I feel right now?” Jinhyuk asked when Wooseok couldn’t answer his first question, and his voice was as angry as it was hurt and desperate. Wooseok didn’t know, he couldn’t know.

“I feel like we were never even friends” Jinhyuk said, and Wooseok could feel the metallic taste of blood starting to seep into his mouth from where he sunk his teeth into his lower lip.

“Like everything I knew, everything I _thought_ I knew about you, was a lie I made myself believe in. Like I wasted seventeen years of my life on someone who doesn’t give a shit about me. I feel used, Wooseok. Worthless. Do you understand that?”

No matter how hard he was biting on his lip, it was hard to fight the tears pooling in his eyes, and he couldn’t raise his head. But in a bizarre, masochistic way, he wanted Jinhyuk to keep talking. He _wanted_ him to get mad, to tell him everything he thought about him, no matter how ugly it was. Maybe once he allowed himself to feel that anger, and Wooseok allowed himself to endure it instead of putting up shields and fighting back, they would let go of what was holding them back from mending this friendship.

“Of course you don’t” Jinhyuk sighed “You don’t know what it’s like to be twenty-seven and feel _wrong_ every time your boyfriend tells you he loves you. ’Why would he love me? What’s he even getting from that? Is he dating me out of pity?’ You’ll never know what it’s like when you can’t believe you deserve to be happy, because you think it’s only fair that you’d get everything and anything you want.”

“Keep going” Wooseok murmured “Don’t worry about my feelings. Just say it.”

Jinhyuk’s eyes widened a fraction, but he knew Wooseok was right. He’d never allow himself the humiliation of listening to someone talk about him like that, if he didn’t truly want to make up for the humiliation he made Jinhyuk feel first. Wooseok couldn’t take criticism, that was a known fact – even when someone said the same thing he himself was thinking, he never let anyone else’s tongue taint his name. Pride was the most important thing to him, and here he was, sitting in front of Jinhyuk, small and with his pride left at his feet, as a peace offering.

So Jinhyuk said it, for Wooseok’s good.

“You’re not better than me. If you keep treating me like you are, I can’t be your friend anymore. That’s not friendship.”

But Wooseok had his own ultimatum too.

“Right now I can only give you a promise” he admitted “But I need to ask you for a favor. It’s the only way I can prove how much you mean to me. Not our friendship, just you. And if after that you still think you’d be happier without me in your life, I’ll respect that.”

“Of course you’d ask for a favor” Jinhyuk rolled his eyes, but he was smiling, for reasons unknown to Wooseok “Okay, let’s hear it.”

“I want to meet Sejin.”

“Huh?” Jinhyuk almost dropped his cup “Where’s that coming from? A few days ago you stopped talking to me when I told you I have a boyfriend, and now you want to _meet_ him?”

“Yeah, so?” Wooseok shrugged nonchalantly “I know I acted like an asshole, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot and I want you to see for yourself that I can change. I want to show you that I’m really happy about you, but I can’t really feel that if I’m not sure if this Sejin guy is even worth shit.”

Jinhyuk had no doubts left in his mind about Wooseok’s sincerity. It wasn’t just what he wanted to believe – for the first time in a while, he didn’t have to make any excuses for Wooseok. The man who stood in front of him wasn’t a seven-year-old kid anymore – somehow, Wooseok matured in these past few days. This was a completely new Wooseok, one that deserved a chance. And Jinhyuk didn’t feel guilty about giving him one.

“Wait, where did my Wooseokie go? Are you sure you don’t just want to scare him away?”

“For god’s sake, I’m not that evil!” Wooseok protested, and they were both on the verge of laughing “I’m serious, I want to meet him. Shouldn’t you be happy about that? It’s me who’s giving _him _a chance.”

Everything was back to normal, and they both felt like they could breathe again, even though they knew this wasn’t the end of their conversation. Many things were left to be addressed before their friendship could really return to what it was before, but they were taking baby steps. They didn’t talk about Jinhyuk’s feelings towards Wooseok. They didn’t talk about Wooseok at all. But Wooseok decided it would fall into place easier once he met Sejin.

“Okay, if you say so” Jinhyuk smiled widely “I’ll ask him if he wants to join us for dinner tomorrow. I’ll ask him right now.” For a second his hand got stuck in the pocket of his jeans because he was too excited to take out his phone, and Wooseok thought it was cute. In only a few seconds, the phone was already ringing, and not more than three rings later, Jinhyuk’s face lit up.

“Hey, baby, whatcha doing?”

“Ew, _baby_” Wooseok giggled quietly next to him and Jinhyuk put a finger to his own lips to shush him.

“That’s great” Jinhyuk smiled “So listen, I’m calling to ask you something. I have a special guest here who’s very eager to meet you, so, are you free tomorrow night to grab dinner with us?”

“No, it’s not my mom, don’t panic!” Jinhyuk laughed “I can’t tell you anything, it’s a surprise. Okay, I’ll pick you up tomorrow at seven. Bye-bye!”

Wooseok couldn’t miss the change in Jinhyuk’s appearance even if he tried. He was absolutely beaming, his cheeks stuck in the smile even moments after ending the call. Wooseok honestly, from the bottom of his heart, felt happy that he got to see his best friend like this. This was a side of Jinhyuk he should’ve met a long time ago.

“Please behave,” Jinhyuk warned “No embarrassing high school stories, and you need to work on that resting bitch face. He’ll probably be intimidated by you.”

“If he can’t handle the little old me, how’s he going to keep up with _you_?” Wooseok teased, and Jinhyuk’s laugh was filled with hidden relief.

Now all that was left was to meet the boyfriend. They will know where to go from there, or at least Wooseok hoped they would find out.

* * *

“So I listened to your advice” he told Seungyoun in the gallery the next morning.

“Whoa, what did I do to deserve that?” Seungyoun acted shocked, but Wooseok could see a proud little smile forming on his face.

“Why does everyone act like I’m devil’s incarnate?” Wooseok whined “I’m going to meet his boyfriend tonight.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Why would I be nervous” Wooseok huffed “I’m getting curious, to be honest. I don’t know what kind of guy Jinhyuk likes. Plus, he replaced _me_, so he better live up to my expectations.”

“Well, if he liked you, there’s a big chance that this new guy is an asshole too” Seungyoun joked and Wooseok shot him a look that could probably cut a man’s throat.

It was Seungyoun idea that Wooseok meets Sejin first. They talked about it the second day after Wooseok’s fight with Jinhyuk, and Seungyoun suggested Wooseok might feel more at ease if he knows that Jinhyuk is in good hands. The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He knew he should’ve trusted Jinhyuk when he said he’s happy, without needing any additional proof, but Wooseok was fiercely protective over the people he cared about, and it was even easier to get possessive over Jinhyuk if he’s being taken away by some stranger who may or may not hurt him even more. Not trusting Sejin simply gave Wooseok an excuse not to celebrate Jinhyuk’s happiness, and he needed to get rid of that.

Seungyoun also thought it could help Wooseok sort out his own emotions. If he doesn’t feel any jealousy when he sees Jinhyuk with another man, then he can confidently close that door behind himself. All this time he’s been subconsciously keeping it open, just in case he develops feelings for Jinhyuk at some point. Maybe if they’re both still single by the time they’re thirty, maybe if Wooseok decides he wants to try being in a relationship, maybe if Jinhyuk confesses and Wooseok can’t find it in himself to reject him. But Jinhyuk wasn’t a “maybe”, a back-up plan or a second choice. To let go of those thoughts, he needed to meet Sejin.

So he dressed up nicely, prepared to be on his best behavior tonight, and now he only needed to survive five more hours without his fears eating him alive. But it was okay, since he was in the glass house with Seungyoun, and they couldn’t reach them there.

* * *

When Wooseok arrived at the small restaurant where they promised to meet, Jinhyuk and Sejin weren’t there yet. Wooseok ordered a bottle of soju to help him calm down, and ten minutes later, just as he finished his second shot and started thinking about downing the rest in one go, the door opened.

He could recognize Jinhyuk, and the short man holding his hand must be Sejin.

“Hey, sorry we’re late” Jinhyuk greeted him cheerfully, but he could hear in his voice how on edge he actually was. He could also see a massive hickey peeking out from his collar that definitely wasn’t there yesterday, and he couldn’t believe they made him wait because they were making out like two teenagers. But tonight, and only tonight, he’ll let it slide.

“Hi, I’m Lee Sejin” the man by Jinhyuk’s side introduced himself with a wide smile. He was soft-spoken, with a smooth voice that matched his face perfectly, and he was about the same height as Wooseok, but he looked even smaller and more delicate. That was Jinhyuk’s type, he supposed.

“I’m Kim Wooseok” he returned the bow and gestured for the two of them to sit across from him. There was a brief hint of shock on Sejin’s face, like he suddenly became more cautious. Jinhyuk probably kept it a “surprise” until the very end, which was childish of him considering how scared Sejin now looked, but he still had that polite smile on his face that was supposed to hide it.

“Oh, you’re Wooseok!” he said cheerfully “You really are as pretty as Jinhyuk described you!” Jinhyuk chuckled nervously, and Wooseok wondered if there was something he didn’t know. Maybe Sejin knew about Jinhyuk’s crush on Wooseok? Was he jealous of him? Wooseok was going to get to the bottom of it all tonight, but he had to remind himself that while he generally liked being envied by people, this was not the time and place to be happy about that. No, that was the old Wooseok, the one that had to improve if he wanted to keep Jinhyuk in his life.

It was still hard to say if Sejin was really as sweet as he looked or if it was all a mask, but maybe that was just Wooseok’s inborn skepticism. Sure, his hair looked like cotton candy and a big, innocent smile never left his face completely, but Wooseok couldn’t fall victim to a superficial first impression.

“Ah, here!” Sejin said as he fished something out of the pocket of his coat. He put what looked like a tiny pink pom-pom straight into Wooseok’s hand, and when he inspected it he realized it had two eyes and blushing cheeks, and that it smelled faintly of strawberries.

“It’s a marimong” he explained before Wooseok could ask “I make them as a hobby and sell them for charity. But I also like giving them as gifts to all my friends!”

Okay, this guy was determined to make it impossible for Wooseok to hate him, and he was succeeding. Marimong? _Charity_? What, Jinhyuk was suddenly dating an angel? There had to be something else there, everyone has a dark side, and Wooseok was going to find his _soon_.

“He made me a custom one that looks like Olaf, can you believe that?” Jinhyuk said excitedly. _Oh fuck it_, Wooseok thought, they really were a perfect match. What other 27-year-old man would not only deal with, but _support _Jinhyuk’s unhealthy obsession with ’Frozen’? Wooseok could just imagine them cuddling up on a couch, marathoning Disney movies and drinking hot cocoa together. It was so sickeningly domestic that Wooseok felt pathetic for even wondering what it would feel like.

Wooseok made sure to thank Sejin for the marimong, and then he decided to play it safe and slip into a casual conversation about work. It was surprisingly not awkward at all, with Sejin being in the fashion industry for about as long as Wooseok, ever since he was twenty and got his first internship during college. He spoke about photography with great passion, which almost reminded him of Seungyoun and painting, but nothing could ever be Seungyoun and painting. He concluded that it was an artist thing, and that artists lived in some weird limbo where they loved their work to death but were constantly frustrated by it even when there wasn’t a concrete reason.

Once he and Sejin were both relaxed by talking about the one thing they had in common, Wooseok felt free enough to include Jinhyuk. He started by talking about the time Jinhyuk skipped an entire day of class in high school because he wanted (_needed_, Jinhyuk corrected him) to finish an anime he’d started marathoning the night before. They both started laughing, and Jinhyuk obviously didn’t join in out of principle, but Wooseok could see he was relieved they were seemingly getting along. His guard wasn’t all the way down, and neither was Wooseok’s, but it was a promising start.

As the night progressed, Wooseok hated to admit that Jinhyuk’s smitten exaggeration might’ve not been an exaggeration at all – Sejin might just be the sweetest person alive. He had a very caring aura around him, which again, reminded him of Seungyoun, but outside of that, they were polar opposites. He was also pretty, super pretty – he definitely could’ve been a model if he didn’t choose to be a photographer. Honestly, even two hours later, Wooseok still couldn’t find the slightest hint of something he could confidently dislike about Sejin.

But he wasn’t giving up. Not because he wanted to be right or wanted to ruin Jinhyuk’s happiness – because he had to be absolutely, completely sure that he was making the right call. So he ordered another bottle of soju to replace the one he emptied a long time ago, and ordered one for Sejin too without even asking. What they did up until now was just warm-up – this is where they start needing the soju.

Sejin was a little flustered to accept the alcohol, but he took a shot with Wooseok out of courtesy. By the way he tried to hide his sour face, Wooseok could see he wasn’t someone who drank often, and judging by his physique, he was probably a lightweight too. But then again, Wooseok wasn’t that big either and he could handle _a lot _of soju. He’s always been proud of his alcohol tolerance, but there was one thing that for some reason got him drunk the second he smelled it – red wine.

The plan was to let the soju loosen him up a little bit but completely break down Sejin’s perfect posture, so he could only hope Sejin would get drunk easily. It was a brilliant game, really, and he didn’t even need Seungyoun to suggest it to him. All the credit went to Wooseok’s evil mind.

Jinhyuk had mostly stayed silent, only joining their conversation when they explicitly mentioned him, and even then he was mostly just whining about them teasing him too much. Wooseok still couldn’t figure out if it was only because he was nervous, or because he wanted to give them space to get to know each other. He definitely looked unsettled, constantly looking back and forth between them, and listening to every word with such a concentration like he was just waiting for something bad to happen.

Wooseok poured Sejin another shot and Jinhyuk shot him a disapproving, almost threatening glance across the table, but it was too late and poor Sejin had not choice but to drink it. Wooseok kept his eyes trained on Sejin, trying to assess if the soju had any effect on him, getting a strange power trip from being able to hold his alcohol better. Other than the slight blush on his face, there were no signs.

“Ooo-kay, I think it’s time to stop drinking, for both of you” Jinhyuk announced and moved their glasses to his side of the table.

“But we’ve only had two shots” Wooseok pouted, but Sejin looked at Jinhyuk like he just saved his life.

“Yes, but _you _had a whole bottle before that” Jinhyuk pointed at Wooseok first, and then at Sejin “And _you _have a two-shot limit.” Wooseok had to snicker at that.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom” he said with great fear in his voice, but he had no other option “Please, please do me a favor and don’t talk about me behind my back anymore. I honestly don’t even think there are any embarrassing high school stories left to tell.”

Wooseok kept his eyes on Jinhyuk until he saw him close the bathroom door, and then he looked back at Sejin with more force than ever. Now was his time to attack. Sejin’s eyes widened slightly, but he was still trying adorably hard to hide his fear from Wooseok.

“Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt Jinhyuk!” he blabbered out to defend himself from Wooseok’s deadly stare “I really am serious about him, my feelings are genuine!”

“I know you couldn’t hurt a fly” Wooseok chuckled “You can relax, really, I’m sure you know no one could possibly have the heart to hate you. But you’re aware I wanted to meet you for a reason. And I’m guessing Jinhyuk also told you about our fight.”

“Yes, he told me” Sejin admitted, but Wooseok’s words didn’t make him feel any more at ease “He didn’t want to go into detail, though, since it was still painful for him. And I’m thankful to you for wanting to meet me. You’re a good friend if you made time to make sure Jinhyuk is with someone who’s good for him.”

“Do you think you’re good for him, though?”

“Yes” Sejin nodded, still trying to sound more confident “I have a lot I want to give him. I don’t know if it’s enough, I don’t know if it’s what he wants, but I know I love him a lot.”

Of course, Wooseok could already tell that. Even without any PDA, it was so painfully obvious how much Sejin and Jinhyuk loved each other. He didn’t miss the way Sejin would sometimes search for Jinhyuk’s hand under the table to make him less anxious, or the way Jinhyuk looked at Sejin while he was speaking – full of pure, unadulterated adoration.

Only now that he was on the outside, could Wooseok grasp the extent of Jinhyuk’s love – how fascinated he was by the person he loved and how much softer it made him look. Wooseok wished he could’ve appreciated that the way Sejin did, back when he was on the receiving end.

“Look, there is really only one thing I need to ask you” Wooseok decided to take the final step, one that could potentially drive him off a cliff, but there was no going back “Do you know that Jinhyuk was in love with me? Up until he met you.”

Sejin’s second of silence wasn’t due to shock. It was full of disappointment, and Wooseok soon saw that this was an unsettling, but familiar subject to Sejin.

“I’m aware of that” he lowered his gaze and Wooseok could feel the sigh that never left his throat “I knew it even before we started dating, before he said anything. And if you want to know how I feel about it, I told Jinhyuk that, as long as we’re honest with each other, it’s okay.”

“But is it really? Are _you _really okay with us hanging out so much?”

“Well, now that I see what you look like, a part of me wants to be insecure. A part of me even wanted to get jealous” Sejin smiled, and it caught Wooseok completely off-guard “But that was me before Jinhyuk. I trust him completely, I trust that he’ll never do anything to hurt me.”

Time for the final act.

“And if I told you that I like Jinhyuk?”

“Then it would be right to confess to him and let him decide who he wants to be with. Can’t say it wouldn’t hurt if he didn’t choose me, but I want him to be happy.”

He could see something so heavy behind Sejin’s eyes, almost as if he wanted to beg for Wooseok not to ruin everything they’ve built, but was too exhausted to do so. Wooseok’s first instinct was to pity him, for giving someone else the power to destroy his happiness so easily, but Wooseok now knew that he was the one who should be pitied, because he didn’t have such a person in his life.

“You’re a good guy, hyung” Wooseok sighed in defeat “I wish I was more like you.”

He never said things like that out loud, but this time he meant it. Of course, Wooseok could feel envious of others (he was only human, as Seungyoun loved to remind him so much), but it wasn’t something his pride could survive to show so openly. But if he wanted to be up to par with Sejin, it’s what he needed to do. Sejin wasn’t afraid to tell Wooseok he felt inferior, and not only because Wooseok’s known Jinhyuk seventeen years longer than him, but even because of personal things like his looks. Sejin was unapologetic about being human and that was his biggest strength. That is how he beat Wooseok.

“He’d choose you” Sejin said abruptly and lowered his head “Please don’t confess to him. He’s been through a lot already.”

But then it was exactly that – he was only human. Unlike Wooseok, he had no fear of being vulnerable, but very much like Wooseok, he feared losing what he loved. Like Wooseok, who was coincidentally also human, he could be selfish when he needed to be. It was exactly what Wooseok was waiting to find in him.  
So he started laughing, and the bizarre reaction on Sejin’s face was priceless in itself. “I like you, I like you!” he clapped like an overjoyed seal “You’re amazing, Sejin-hyung!”

In the end, he could confidently say Jinhyuk found the person who can give him the world. Sejin was naturally kind and righteous, that much was undeniable, but still strong enough to protect what matters to him. It was so incredibly rare to find people who could fight this world not only without losing their softness, but by using it as their biggest weapon. He was a special person, not a pretty but empty shell or a mediocre photographer who just floated through his life. Maybe he was more than Wooseok could ever be.

“What, what just happened? Were you messing with me?” Sejin looked like he was about to pass out. His panic was endearing, Wooseok had to admit.

“Welcome to the family!” Wooseok held up a glass of soju as if to cheers, but he wasn’t waiting for Sejin to actually join him, he just downed it alone at the speed of light “Never let anyone take Jinhyuk away from you. Shit, he doesn’t even deserve to be with you!”

Maybe it was all the soju hitting at once, maybe it was just plain relief, but he felt so inexplicably happy. Jinhyuk was in love and being loved in return. Sejin passed his scrutinizing examination with flying colors. Pieces were falling into place, even if Wooseok himself still felt lost in the puzzle.

Sejin started laughing too, his anxiety dissolving very, very slowly. “Please don’t do this to me anymore...” he tried to pass it off as a joke, but Wooseok saw in his terrified eyes that he really meant it.

In the corner of his eye, Wooseok could see Jinhyuk returning to their table. “Hey, hey, you two seem to be in a good mood!” he smiled from ear to ear “You were gossiping about me again, weren’t you?”

“Yeah, I was just about to tell him about the time you crashed your dad’s car because you were crying to ’Let it Go’ and couldn’t focus on the road.”

“He _what now_?” Sejin started squealing.

As the night went on, Wooseok realized why Sejin was exactly the person he’d choose for Jinhyuk. He was mature, much more mature than Wooseok himself, and he was selfless, humble and full of empathy. Their elegant gestures and delicate frames might’ve been similar, but their personalities couldn’t have been more different. Wooseok wondered how Jinhyuk could’ve loved _him_, and then fall in love with someone like Sejin, but he guessed it was one of those things he was yet to understand about love.

One thing that did add to his understanding tonight, was that Wooseok finally witnessed what it’s like to be truly in love. Not in a dead-end love that made you feel bad about yourself, not in a cloud of lust like he and his one-night stands. This was a gentle, well-meaning love that made them both bloom into brighter versions of themselves. Wooseok wanted that. So there was the last answer he was searching for – no, he wasn’t jealous of Sejin. He was jealous of Sejin and Jinhyuk together, of what they had, even of the mere way they smiled at each other.

Maybe Wooseok was the kind of person that made the men who loved him miserable. Maybe he was fun to want but hard to love. Maybe even Jinhyuk, who knew him in and out, only liked the idea of loving him all along. Maybe there was no one who could look at his face and smile like that for no reason, no Sejin waiting out there for him.

But it didn’t matter, as long as Jinhyuk had his Sejin. If there was anyone whose happiness Wooseok was able to use as a substitute for his own, it was Jinhyuk. He still felt like he owed Jinhyuk one last apology, like there was something else laying on his heart, but at this moment at the restaurant, he felt himself becoming happy for Jinhyuk. He could smile and laugh with Sejin and Jinhyuk, the three of them could hold a conversation together, and it was a nice change-up from his and Jinhyuk’s routinely get-togethers. Sejin was someone he’d like to call a friend, one day when they’ve gotten to know each other better, not just because of Jinhyuk, but because he’s pleasant to be around. He could even introduce them to Seungyoun and he’s sure the three of them would get along, and would probably tease him to no ends. But that’s a thought for another day.

* * *

It was nearly midnight when Jinhyuk, ever the responsible one in the group, suggested they went home. All three of them had work in the morning, which they were too busy to think about, so they agreed and Jinhyuk offered to drive both of them to their homes.

It’s strange how such a small thing could affect someone’s heart so much. When Wooseok went to the passenger’s seat, because that’s what he always did, he had to stop in his tracks. He was now in the back, allowing Jinhyuk and Sejin some space for themselves, and though it wasn’t really any different from how they were at the restaurant, he felt like he was only a spectator of a movie. Watching someone else sit there with Jinhyuk, in the place he thought was made only for him, simply didn’t feel real, it felt like something distant his mind could produce, but could never bring outside the realm of imagination. But it was happening, and it was his reality.

Sejin’s apartment complex was only a few blocks away from the restaurant, so their car ride together didn’t last very long. Once they arrived at Sejin’s building and Sejin’s fingers were already wrapped around the door handle, Jinhyuk leaned in to kiss him, but he turned his cheek instead. Jinhyuk looked surprised by it, maybe even hurt, but he knew Sejin only did it to be mindful of Wooseok. Before he left the car, he turned around to properly say goodbye to Wooseok, and gave Jinhyuk a shy but sweet peck on the forehead. Wooseok could tell by his relieved smile that this was enough for him.

“What are you waiting for?” he suddenly turned to Wooseok “Get in the front seat.” Wooseok couldn’t help but smile as he climbed back to where he belongs.

Now that he was alone with Jinhyuk, the atmosphere had changed, but he couldn’t decide if it was for the better or for worse. Outside of the busy restaurant, he was more aware of how late it was, and the exhaustion of having lived through the entire day, mixed with the soju, made his bones feel heavier, but he welcomed that heaviness. Jinhyuk’s radio was quietly playing some new drama OST, Jinhyuk was looking ahead at the empty roads, and Wooseok could see the city lights turning into a blur in front of their eyes. This scene felt like home.

“So, what do you think about Sejin?” Jinhyuk broke the silence before Wooseok could get too sleepy to talk. No matter how easy it was to pretend nothing had happened between them and just pick up where they left off, they both knew it wouldn’t work in the long run. Wooseok still had a lot left to say, and he was sure Jinhyuk did too.

“He’s a great guy. Seriously, how did an old geezer like you get someone so pretty?”

“Hey, I’m pretty too!” Jinhyuk protested. It was fun, teasing Jinhyuk just like he did Seungyoun, seeing him squirm and then let their laughs blend together in the end. Wooseok wanted to end it there, to erase any words that wouldn’t make Jinhyuk smile, and to never see him different from how he was right now – happy, warm and safely enveloped in Sejin’s love.

Wooseok knew he needed to ask the question sooner or later. The restaurant had already sucked most of his energy out of him – it was all about finding the right timing and pushing yourself to put words into the air that had the power to break everything. But once this night was over – and it was, after all, just one of the many nights in his life – he’ll never have to tiptoe around Jinhyuk again. If all goes well, he’ll have his best friend back.

So in order to make tomorrow another day he gets to share with Jinhyuk, he said it.

“Would you break up with him if I told you I liked you?”

It will be decided with a word. And after he hears that word, Wooseok doesn’t know what he’ll do, or how he’ll feel, but he had to hear it.

“No” Jinhyuk said without a moment of hesitation. It was stern, simple and sincere, accompanied only by the inevitable little sadness that came with letting go of something you got used to loving. Wooseok wasn’t surprised by the answer, so he smiled.

“You should tell him that” he said quietly “He thinks you’d pick me.”

“What the - “ Jinhyuk almost swerved his car “What the fuck did you say to him, Wooseok?!”

“I was just testing him. But he passed.”

“You don’t need to fucking _test _him” Jinhyuk sighed, but he had expected as much from Wooseok “But, well, I’m glad you like him. Because he’s not going anywhere if I can help it.”

“I sure hope not, he’s totally husband material.” And at that, Jinhyuk grinned like an idiot.

Wooseok had to take some time to take in this new image of Jinhyuk. It seemed like he wasn’t afraid to love Sejin anymore. With the way the husband comment made him blush, Wooseok knew it was something he secretly wanted. As much as he was a workaholic, Jinhyuk had far too much love in him to spend the rest of his life alone. Wooseok couldn’t understand it, because he wasn’t the type of person who could feel loneliness, but for someone like Jinhyuk, he wondered how hard it must’ve been not to have anyone who’d want to receive that love.

This new Jinhyuk looked just like his Jinhyuk, but he was happier. His eyes were brighter now, no traces of exhaustion even though Wooseok knew he probably pulled even more all-nighters so he could still work like a madman and nurture a relationship. Wooseok didn’t know people could actually bloom just by being in love, he thought it was another one of those pathetic lines they liked to put in romance dramas, but Jinhyuk was living proof that a love like that can exist on the other side of the TV screen too. The man that was now sitting beside him reminded him of the ten-year-old Jinhyuk, the one who offered him a band-aid out of sheer kindness, the one who did not know about the cruelty of growing up. But this was a Jinhyuk that only existed because of Sejin’s love. Wooseok had no part to play in it.

“You needed someone like him” Wooseok finally said “You needed him for a long time now. I’m sorry.”

_This is who you really are. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you bloom._

“Hey, it’s not your fault” Jinhyuk’s voice softened “You know I was never mad at you, right? I’m happy, because if you had returned my feelings, maybe I wouldn’t have met Sejin. I’m glad that things turned out this way, I really am. This was the right moment for me, and he was worth the wait.”

Jinhyuk spoke slowly, trying to string his thoughts together, but he was just as worn out as Wooseok. There must’ve been a million things he wanted to say to Wooseok now, now that he was saying goodbye to his first love, but there was something sacred in the silence of the night and the humming of the car that didn’t allow to be tainted by excessive words. So Wooseok only said what he couldn’t run away from anymore, what he needed Jinhyuk to understand the most.

“You don’t get it” Wooseok’s vision started blurring, and his voice was torn between a whisper and a scream, alternating between the two in a way that scared him “Because of me you could never receive the love you deserve. I made you miserable for so many years, and every time I felt you getting better and drifting away from me, I pulled you back in _on purpose_, because I’m a fucking narcissist who can’t stand not being number one! You should hate me! It would’ve been easier for you if you’d just started hated me a long time ago!”

_Please hate me the way I hate myself. Please make it easier for me to pity myself again._

Jinhyuk’s eyes were empty again. He held on tighter to the steering wheel because he couldn’t say anything, because he knew Wooseok was right. But he couldn’t keep hating himself for not hating Wooseok. It’s what Sejin taught him – a good heart is not a curse. Sometimes, if you use it to take care of yourself too, it can be your strongest weapon.

“I know. I know, but I can’t hate you. You’re my best friend. I know you would’ve chosen to love me if you could.” And Wooseok finally shattered.

Wooseok was seven when Jinhyuk first saw him cry, and Jinhyuk cleaned the blood from his small and scraped knee.

He was fifteen the second time, and Jinhyuk promised he’ll come home for every holiday and bring Wooseok cool gifts from Japan every time he does.

The third time he cried in front of Jinhyuk, he was twenty-four and Jinhyuk couldn’t do anything about it.

He cried and cried, without even knowing what he was crying so hard about. He thought a part of it might be relief – relief that Jinhyuk had finally reached the place he needed to be, and he doesn’t have to carry the weight of that guilt anymore. There was probably still an egoistical part of him that cried because he was afraid he’ll never be loved again, a strange fear that he had discovered that day in the gallery while talking to Seungyoun. Maybe he was just like Jinhyuk and he needed to be loved in order to bloom. Maybe he just wanted to know what it felt like to be in full bloom.

But in the end, it was just the fact that Wooseok hadn’t truly cried in a very long time. Every emotion he’d kept hidden leaped out of him once it got the chance. Unlike all those times when tears pooled up in his waterline but his pride wouldn’t let them leave, he now had the freedom to experience his own emotions. Because no matter who Jinhyuk loved, he’ll always be a safe place for Wooseok to cry.

“You’ll always be my number one” Jinhyuk whispered once Wooseok’s breathing evened out, though tears were still silently flowing down his face “Loving you was a beautiful thing in my life, Wooseokie. Gosh, I never even told you properly, but I loved you, I really did, with all my heart. If I could go back to when I was seventeen, knowing how it all turns out, I would’ve still chosen to fall in love with you. But I’m not in love with you anymore.”

Once he said that, Jinhyuk could feel his own defenses finally giving in too. The moment his warm tears started flowing, without even waiting for their turn before racing down his skin, he knew it’d be pointless to fight them. He cried in silence, because he never thought he’d confess to Wooseok, let alone that it would happen in his car in the middle of the night, after he’s already stopped loving him. But midnight welcomed them both with open arms, letting them cry together like two kids, and Jinhyuk knew he didn’t have to be strong for Wooseok anymore, because Wooseok could now be strong on his own.

Jinhyuk broke one of their unspoken promises, he said out loud the only thing that was never supposed to be said, but by doing so, he made a new promise. A promise of a happy future, of an eternity of friendship, and of finding their own meanings of love while still watching over each other. It was a journey they could now take with unburdened hearts.

“Seungyoun said you can now love me the way you’re supposed to love me” Wooseok laughed weakly as he wiped away the last tear “So I don’t mind being second place, as long as you do.”

In all their years of friendship, Jinhyuk and Wooseok had only once had a heart-to-heart like this one, one where they both cried and ended up feeling lighter after emptying their hearts together on one pile. It was nine years ago, when Jinhyuk had to tell Wooseok he’d be going to Japan for college. Wooseok was only fifteen at the time, but they talked about their most unattainable dreams, the expectations everyone had of them, and how uncertain they both were about their futures. It was the night they pinkie-promised to become the best model and the best manager in all of Korea. This night reminded Wooseok of that, because it was also a new beginning for them. They’d said everything that needed to be said about the past, and now all that was left was to share their future.

“Seungyoun?” Jinhyuk craned his neck in surprised “You opened up to _Seungyoun_?”

“I had no choice” Wooseok tried to make an excuse “He’s a pain in the ass.”

“And god knows you like a little pain in the ass” Jinhyuk laughed at his own dumb joke. Because some things, sadly, never change.

“What the fuck is wrong with you” Wooseok laughed too, though his nose was crinkled with disgust “I’m gonna steal your boyfriend.”

The atmosphere became lighter and Wooseok felt at peace again. Nothing had changed between them, not really, though he’d still need some time to come to terms with it all. No matter how messed up it sounded to other people, or how many new boys came into their lives, it was always going to be Jinhyuk and Wooseok, Wooseok and Jinhyuk. He was sure of it.

“C’mon, we both know Sejinie is not your type” Jinhyuk scoffed “But then again, I didn’t think Mr. Painter was your type either, and here we are. You’re full of surprises, Wooseokie.”

“Just because we had one civilized conversation doesn’t mean I don’t hate him.”

“But you know you don’t.” Jinhyuk had a mischievous glint in his eyes.

“I really don’t!” Wooseok shouted all of a sudden, bursting with comical frustration with himself “What’s wrong with him? Why is he not unbearable to be around anymore?!”

“Little Wooseokie is discovering that not everyone is out to get him” Jinhyuk wiped a fake tear from the corner of his eye “Before you know it, he’ll be making friends!”

“Please, I’m never going to be _friends _with Seungyoun.”

“Oh spare me, you’re already friends. Seungyoun knows it too, it’s just you who’s slow.”

“This isn’t some “enemies to friends to lovers” drama bullshit you like watching” Wooseok rolled his eyes.

“You know, I haven’t even thought of “lovers”, but now that you mention it, that’s exactly what it is!” Jinhyuk exclaimed like he just had an epiphany. Wooseok had accidentally created a monster.

Not that he minded, thought. He realized he’d wanted to talk to Jinhyuk about Seungyoun for a long time now, but he didn’t know why. Now that Seungyoun was such a big part of his everyday life, it was only natural that he shared it with his best friend. Tomorrow, or maybe some other day, he’ll tell him about the raincoat painting too, the one he loved more than any other Seungyoun’s painted so far, and about them singing “Love Shot” together, and everything else Jinhyuk missed out on because of Wooseok’s worthless pride.

But tonight, they managed to win back everything they needed. They could tease each other again, talk about silly and mundane things such as Seungyoun’s puns or how Minkyu embarrassed himself at his latest photoshoot. Wooseok even surprised himself when he thought he’d like to talk more about Sejin. The same way he asked Seungyoun about painting, he wanted to pick apart that love in Jinhyuk’s words too, and more than ever he wanted to understand him.

Maybe he could ask him about it some other day, and Jinhyuk would surely make use of the opportunity to gush about his new boyfriend. For tonight, he let the radio drown out what was left of his sleepy thoughts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so so so sorry that this update took longer than usual but, well, it got out of hand and ended up 10k words long.  
I just want to say that Sejin is an angel who ended our suffering, so I hope the fic gets better from here! As always, you can tell me all your thoughts <3


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for 200+ kudos <3  
sadly, i can't give you anything better than this right now to return your kindness, but i'll keep trying!

“Someone looks happy today” Seungyoun noticed right away, unable to hide his own smile.

“Yeah, well, someone managed not to fuck anything up and made up with his best friend” Wooseok said proudly, and he didn’t bother to hide his happiness from Seungyoun anymore. If anything, he knew Seungyoun liked seeing him happy. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him, but something in the way Seungyoun looked at the canvas seemed different when the mood in the glass house was bright. Even when there were glimpses of frustration in his eyes after going over one centimeter of surface three thousand times, there was also a fondness, and a smile that looked like Seungyoun didn’t even know about it.

“Tell me, how did it go?” Seungyoun wanted to know more. By this point, it really felt like they were sharing their lives. Seungyoun knew Wooseok’s plans after work and Wooseok knew his, and then in the morning they’d talk about it again, and telling each other such mundane details that it felt so domestic but so natural.

“I met his boyfriend” Wooseok started with the obvious “He’s really nice, really pretty, too. I can see what Jinhyuk sees in him, they make a good couple.”

“So he has your blessing?” Seungyoun asked teasingly, and Wooseok nodded “But what about you? Did you talk to Jinhyuk afterward?”

Ah. He wasn’t expecting Seungyoun to ask about that, and he didn’t know if he could properly talk about what happened in the car last night. It felt sacred, like something that’s supposed to stay between the two of them, no matter how much he cherished this new opportunity to share everything with Seungyoun.

“Yeah, we talked” he said in the end “We also cried, a lot, so I feel better now. I think we both said everything we wanted to.”

“I’m happy to hear that” Seungyoun said with a sincere smile. He got Wooseok’s message not to dig too deep into it, but he had no doubt that Wooseok was being honest with him. Seeing him truly happy after almost a week awakened something inside of Seungyoun, gave him a new strength to paint with, and he was overwhelmed by the colors and ideas that came to him all at once when he looked at Wooseok. He was peaceful and that was a great relief to Seungyoun, even though he wasn’t aware of how worried he was about Wooseok before.

Wooseok settled back into the familiar comfort of watching Seungyoun paint while listening to his music. He wasn’t just a distraction anymore, and the glass house wasn’t just a hideout from his problems – without Wooseok even noticing, it became another home, just like his favorite restaurant or Jinhyuk’s car. And Seungyoun, Seungyoun became more and more complex every time Wooseok looked at him. At first, he was an annoying painter. Then he was an annoying but smart and interesting painter. Then he was his singing partner and personal raincoat. And now he was all that but with two mismatched eyes and slightly uneven teeth and a voice that went straight under Wooseok’s skin. Every day, he became something more. There was no putting labels on Cho Seungyoun.

The only thing Wooseok could do about it now was let himself drown in the slow beats of Seungyoun’s R’n’B playlist and enjoy the silence that was as comfortable as if they’d known each other for decades.

* * *

It was the painting Seungyoun painted that day that changed everything for him.

He wondered if it’s always such small things that lead you to your most important realizations. It felt just like that story that Seungyoun told him, when he went to a museum as a school trip during his time in Brazil, and he saw a painting that made him realize he needed to return to Korea and focus on becoming a painter. A single moment in time can change the course of your destiny when you least expect it, Wooseok had learned that much, but he didn’t think he was like Seungyoun. He didn’t think a garden of colors on a canvas could mean that much to him.

Perhaps it wasn’t the painting itself, because it wasn’t that different from Seungyoun’s other works. There was nothing eccentric or particularly unexpected going on, it was just a gateway to Wooseok’s epiphany. It was the way Seungyoun looked at the painting, with a fondness that he didn’t usually have for his works. He wasn’t searching for its flaws because he saw something else in it, something he was finally able to pour out of himself and just the fact that it existed on a canvas was far more precious to him than the execution.

The first time Seungyoun painted him with flowers, Wooseok was only peeking from behind a large pink chrysanthemum. This time, Wooseok was holding his head in both of his slender hands, and he was an untouchable deity with a whole crown of red roses on his head. Seungyoun made him king again. Seungyoun made him bloom.

And the way Seungyoun looked at him in full bloom, the pride that radiated from his smile, it made Wooseok’s heart heavy with love. Even though it couldn’t be compared to anything else he’d ever felt, there was no doubt about it anymore – he was in love with Seungyoun. And it was a simple, overwhelming love that he never thought he’d be able to feel, pulsing through his veins so forcefully that it made him dizzy.

He ran out of the gallery before he could say anything about the painting.

* * *

The days following Wooseok’s discovery were excruciating, to say the least.

Nothing actually changed, Wooseok knew that, but all those strange feelings he had were impossible to ignore now that he knew what their real names. Seungyoun’s smile made his heart flutter before, but now it made it clench. His numerous desires left him restless but helpless – the curiosity he had always felt about Seungyoun now turned into an itch he couldn’t scratch. It was easy for his mind to spiral into unthinkable thoughts as he looked at Seungyoun, such as what it would feel like to kiss him and how his name would taste on Wooseok’s tongue if it was just a desperate whisper. There were so many things to experience with Seungyoun, so many things to learn about him, and Wooseok wanted it all and he wanted it now. He wondered if it was okay to want so much from someone.

But it’s not as if he only wanted to take from Seungyoun. For the first time, he wanted to give as well, to leave all his firsts in Seungyoun’s hands, along with his pride and self-restraint and the urge to control everything at all times. Maybe, and only if it’s for Seungyoun, Wooseok could let go of all that. But the magnitude of those feelings was something he couldn’t have possibly prepared himself for.

As much as he’d heard about love being the strongest feeling of all and whatnot, he couldn’t imagine it was anything other than a superficial pleasure, a mix of convenience and attraction. But then there was this _pull_, this uncontrollable urge just to be close to the one he loved, and the overflowing affection that he couldn’t understand. All he knew was that it made him feel needy and impatient, but most of all, it _frightened _him.

When he was with Seungyoun, he liked being in love with him. Okay, maybe the general idea of being in love still made his skin crawl, but it was _Seungyoun_, and loving him was, much like he himself, a special type of joy. He could look forward to work every day because he knew Seungyoun would greet him with a smile, and Wooseok always liked working, but it was never his favorite part of the day until now. Even early in the morning, his alarm clock was just a pleasant reminder of the music Seungyoun would soon play for him and the painting he will paint today.

But before he went to sleep, when he was truly alone in his mind, that happiness morphed into a fear bigger and darker than anything he’d ever felt. What was wrong with him? How did he fall for some unknown painter who acted like a 7-year-old most of the time? What was he doing, Seungyoun didn’t even like him back! Sure, they sometimes flirted to pass the time, but that was just Seungyoun’s personality, he probably flirted with all his friends. No, Wooseok wasn’t one of those people who allowed themselves to fall in love and completely lose their minds. He wasn’t going to endure an unrequited first love and get his heart broken. He _needed_ to fall out of love.

And then when he saw Seungyoun, he didn’t anymore.

During those few days of not knowing what to do with his infatuation, he also took time to observe Jinhyuk being changed by love. He was glad to be on the outside, where he could get a better view of Jinhyuk’s cheeks glowing pink every time he talked about something he and Sejin did together, or the way his voice went an octave higher than usual when he laughed at something his boyfriend had texted him. Now that he had seen that side of Jinhyuk too, he started questioning everything he knew about love.

It no longer looked like a wolf with all its teeth bared at him; maybe it was just a kitten that could settle comfortably into his lap without disrupting his daily life too much. That’s the way Seungyoun sneaked into his life in the first place, anyway.

In a moment of weakness, he even asked Seungyoun about it, and Seungyoun was smart enough not to ask any invasive questions, though Wooseok had a feeling Seungyoun had sensed a change in him.

“I have a weird question today” he announced on one of those mornings, hoping that it wouldn’t give him away “How do you know that you like someone?”

“Well, if you’re not Kim Wooseok with commitment issues, you just know it” Seungyoun joked “But since you _are_, you have to be very honest with yourself. Sometimes, it feels like you fell in love all at once, when actually you’ve been falling for a long time without realizing. Sorry, I don’t have any pretty answer, it’s just the way it is.”

“You love acting like you double majored in psychology and philosophy, but you’re just a painter after all” Wooseok laughed.

“_Just _a painter?!” Seungyoun pretended to be offended “Excuse you, painters have to have a deep understanding of psychology, philosophy and many other sciences to be able to portray their characters correctly. They also need to have the empathy that I’m displaying here on the daily, aren’t I?”

“And you call me a narcissist” Wooseok rolled his eyes.

“Hey, you’re an icy, self-sufficient model and I’m a pretentious artist who doubles as your incredibly helpful therapist. Name a better duo.”

Wooseok didn’t want to admit it, but it was a simple truth. They completed each other, and not in a ying-yang type of way; they were more similar than they’d like to admit, but they were their own brands of layered and tangled. Rather than any cliché about knights and princesses, they were two individuals unadjusted to this world who could conquer it together.

But Seungyoun was partially wrong about him – this feeling might not have been easy to accept, but it was impossible to deny, and therefore Wooseok fell to his knees in front of it just like everyone else.

_“Sometimes it feels like you fell in love all at once, when actually you’ve been falling for a long time without realizing it.”_

Wooseok couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he started falling into the world of Cho Seungyoun, but now he could distinctly feel himself getting swallowed by it. It was the final red flag that made him reach out for help.

* * *

The guests were greeted with some delivery food and four bottles of soju already laid out on the table, and an extremely frustrated Wooseok pacing around his own living room. Wooseok just couldn’t be bothered to make a real dinner (mostly because he didn’t know how), because he was too busy worrying about how he was going to break this down to his friends.

Sejin pursed his lips as he searched Jinhyuk’s face for an explanation, but Jinhyuk just shook his head as if to say ’this is completely normal’.

“This is an intervention” Wooseok announced when they sat down at the table, without even greeting them properly. He could already see that Jinhyuk was trembling with excitement just as much as his boyfriend was with confusion, since it was his first time seeing Wooseok in the middle of a mild mental breakdown.

“Oh, you made an intervention for yourself?” Jinhyuk chuckled “Good job.”

“Before you say anything, just answer my questions, okay?” Wooseok said very seriously “It is very important.”

“O-kay?” Jinhyuk furrowed his eyebrows and looked at Sejin who was just as perplexed “You’re starting to scare us.”

“How did you know you were in love with each other?” He asked that question in hopes of finding out all of this was just a false alarm. Maybe he didn’t need to confess this to Sejin and Jinhyuk, maybe he just needed to realize that this is a normal thing that happens when you spend a lot of time with someone interesting. And funny, and smart, and ridiculously attractive. But it doesn’t have to be _love_ per se.

“Well, I...” Sejin raised his hand hesitantly and started “In my case, I knew it when I noticed how much happier I was when I was with Jinhyuk. It’s fun no matter what we’re doing, but I also like just knowing that he’s there. And I wanted to know a lot about him, because I had a feeling we could understand each other well. I guess, it’s like that for most people?”

Jinhyuk looked three seconds away from bursting into tears when he launched himself at his boyfriend. Wooseok could only imagine how impractical and painful it was to Sejin, given their size difference. “_Baby_” he cried out with his irritating high-pitched voice “I had no idea you felt that way!”

Well, what Sejin said was all applicable to Wooseok’s situation. Seungyoun definitely made him happy, he was fun to be around but he was a good person to stay silent with too. He got Wooseok’s full attention even when he talked about things like art, which Wooseok had never taken an interest in before, and Wooseok found himself understanding those things just like Seungyoun understood his feelings whenever Wooseok felt the need to share them. The odds weren’t in his favor.

“Okay, back to _me_!” Wooseok scolded them before they could get too lovey-dovey “How about you, Jinhyuk?”

“It’s not a checklist, Wooseokie!” Jinhyuk laughed “I just felt it, I just _knew_!”

“I knew Sejin was the only useful person here” Wooseok sighed “Okay, next question, how do you make it go away?”

Sejin and Jinhyuk looked at each other again. Sejin bit his lips to hide a smile because he knew Wooseok would get furious, but Jinhyuk couldn’t even manage to do that. See, that was the dangerous things about love. These two could understand each other perfectly just by exchanging a glance, while Wooseok was left on the other side, trying to figure out why he didn’t like the looks on their faces.

“HolyshityoulikeSeungyoun!” Jinhyuk shouted quickly before Wooseok could stop him. He was absolutely _beaming _as he said that, so full of pride and maybe some remains of disbelief. Sejin, who was still new to their dynamics and especially Wooseok’s thoughts on all this, tried to not to look like he was an invested viewer of some romance drama, but he had to admit it was an entertaining scene, with Jinhyuk laughing like a madman and ice prince Wooseok red from head to toe.

“No, what the fuck, take that back!” Wooseok sounded frantic, as if Jinhyuk spoke it into existence “No, no, _no_, I do _not _like Seungyoun, ew, no. Shut up, stop laughing.”

Well, at least he didn’t have to be the one to say that out loud. But it didn’t change the fact that it had been said.

“Wow, I can’t believe I lived to see this day... Little Wooseokie actually has feelings for someone... Wants to date a boy...” Jinhyuk wiped imaginary tears from him eyes.

“Why are you so sure it’s Seungyoun?” Wooseok tried to defend himself, but he knew too well that he didn’t have any good arguments “Maybe I went out and met someone else!”

“Yeah, it’s definitely not the only guy you keep talking about every day” Jinhyuk rolled his eyes “Wooseok, were you in the car when you spent twenty minutes explaining to me how Seungyoun was able to make the raincoat look translucent in his painting? You said, and I quote, _Isn’t it fascinating, Jinhyuk?_, and we both know you slept through art class even in elementary school. But you memorized every word he told you about that technique.”

“That pretty much sounds like what I just said” Sejin nodded sagely, but he looked like he wanted to apologize to Wooseok for not being able to take his side.

“I knew it, I fucking called it!” Jinhyuk kept gloating, as if this was some personal victory of his “Hey, we gotta cheers to Wooseokie finally having his first crush!”

“Fuck you, I’m not cheering to that” Wooseok spat out as he drank his soju straight from the bottle, gulping it down without taking a break to breathe. Sejin was initially forced by his boyfriend to take a shot, even though Jinhyuk was a hypocrite who only drank water, but then he poured himself another one, obviously starting to enjoy himself a little more.

Wooseok buried his rapidly heating face into his arms, because this entire situation he was put in made him look like some love-struck schoolgirl, but he had to stay proactive. “Just fucking answer my question – how do I make it stop?”

“Oh honey” Jinhyuk looked at him with compassion, very similar to what was written on Sejin’s face “Sorry, but you can’t do that.”

“Figures, Sejin-hyung wouldn’t choose to like you if there was a way out...” Wooseok tried to distract himself, to which Jinhyuk protested but Sejin just laughed.

“No, I can’t be in love with that dumbass, I don’t have time for this” Wooseok repeated like a desperate mantra, but Jinhyuk and Sejin still couldn’t stop laughing at him (well, Sejin was at least doing his best to only giggle politely, but Jinhyuk’s howls were loud enough for the both of them). He was in full-on panic mode, just like that time at the gallery when he first found out about this, because now that Jinhyuk and even Sejin knew about it, it was more palpable than ever. He liked Seungyoun. He knew it, his friends knew it, it felt like the whole universe knew it and the moon itself was now mocking him for it. If there was an emergency exit before, he just sealed it.

“Why is it such a bad thing? I mean, we don’t know Seungyoun personally, but you said only good things to Jinhyuk. Maybe you could try dating him” Sejin suggested innocently. Wooseok and Jinhyuk now laughed in unison.

“No, no, the almighty Wooseok doesn’t _do _dating” Jinhyuk explained “He doesn’t want to risk getting his heart broken because, and I quote, it’s too _embarrassing_.”

“Exactly” Wooseok didn’t miss the sarcasm in Jinhyuk’s voice, but he chose to rise above it “I mean, not that anyone would ever leave me, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Can’t have people knowing that there’s someone out there who doesn’t want me.”

“So from what I understand...” Sejin was visibly trying his best to put it nicely “You don’t want to date anyone because of your pride?”

“Shit babe, you said it” Jinhyuk said under his breath because he was ready for Wooseok to start fuming. He didn’t like being called out on his pride, because he firmly believed that it was an integral component of being human. People who didn’t put their pride first were, according to him, weaker than those who did because they couldn’t control their feelings properly. So yes, Wooseok would do anything to keep his pride intact.

“Yes, so?” he said calmly “What’s so bad about that?”

“Do you think Jinhyuk was embarrassed by you not liking him back?” Sejin asked softly but sternly, and the whole atmosphere changed “Do you think he’s less respectable now because he loved someone and it didn’t pan out perfectly? Is he pathetic in your eyes?”

“No” Wooseok said softly. Jinhyuk didn’t like it when Sejin mentioned his past feelings for his best friend, because it was a closed chapter that didn’t need to be revisited, but he knew Sejin was just trying to help Wooseok. And he had a point, one that he himself would’ve been too scared to mention to Wooseok even after years and years of friendship.

Wooseok took time to think about it, even though his first instinct was to get mad at Sejin for speaking about him and Jinhyuk so comfortably. It was true that, at one point of his life, he thought Jinhyuk was pitiful for enduring all that, but that point was back when he was a teenager, and he couldn’t afford to stay that same person anymore.

“Almost everyone has broken up and been broken up with, it’s a part of life” Sejin continued “What’s a lot sadder is sabotaging your own life out of fear. If he makes you happy, you go out there, make an idiot out of yourself and give him a damn marimong even though you’re both grown men and he could just laugh at you.”

Wooseok’s lips quirked into a smile at Sejin’s passionate speech. Judging by the blush on his cheeks, the tone of that speech was influenced by the soju they drank as well, but it only made him look cuter. Jinhyuk hugged his boyfriend’s waist again and whined about loving his marimongs and how he’d never laugh at him, which just solidified Wooseok’s belief that Jinhyuk could never make the first move on someone as beautiful as Sejin.

Sejin looked a little embarrassed because he allowed himself to be so frank with Wooseok, but honestly, Wooseok appreciated it. It was a sign that they were getting closer, that Sejin was no longer afraid of him, and in the light of recent events, Wooseok had learned that accepting harsh truths is the only path to success.

“Okay” Wooseok bit his lip bravely “Okay, I’m gonna need a marimong.”

* * *

_Fourteen days left_.

Against everyone else’s will, Jinhyuk had dubbed it ’Operation Seduce Seungyoun’.

The two-week plan that they’d stayed up carefully crafting sounded simple in theory, but Wooseok never expected Seungyoun to make it so difficult. The only thing he needed to do was flirt with Seungyoun here and there, and they’d been doing that for a while now without even intending to, so why was it so hard for him to speak now? Thankfully, he had a special helper to kickstart the operation.

“What’s this?” Seungyoun’s eyes beamed as he inspected the fluffy yellow creature in his hands. Luckily, Sejin had a variety of marimongs on him at all times, and Wooseok just thought that yellow would suit Seungyoun’s personality. He didn’t know his favorite color (looking back at it, it was weird that he never asked), but yellow was always something he associated with Seungyoun, from the day he met him. The fact that he spent so much time wondering if Seungyoun liked the color of a _marimong_ was an embarrassing reminder of how gone he was.

“It’s a... it’s a marimong. Jinhyuk’s boyfriend makes them and donates the profits to an animal shelter. But he wanted me to give you this one as a gift. He likes giving them to people, apparently.”

“It’s adorable, I’m going to treasure it!” Seungyoun smiled like it was the best thing he’d ever gotten and lightly pressed the marimong to his chest “Be sure to thank Sejin for me!”

“You remember his name?” Wooseok’s eyebrow quirked up.

“Yeah, I listen to what you’re saying” Seungyoun shrugged as if it was a given, and it probably was, but it did something strange to his heart. Stupid L word.

“Ahh, that’s so cute!” Seungyoun kept gushing as he stared at his marimong in awe “Sejin must make Jinhyuk a lot of marimongs. Imagine having a cute boyfriend like that...”

“Can’t relate” Wooseok pursed his lips.

“Don’t you have someone you like?” Seungyoun asked all of a sudden. Shit. Does he just throw the whole operation away and confess now? No, that would be too boring. Maybe it was just his inner Jinhyuk speaking, always hungry for drama-worthy moments, but if he’s ever forced to confess his feelings first, it’s not going to be like this.

“Well, um, define like.”

“Like, someone you’d want to date and give marimongs to and do mushy stuff like that with?”

_How dumb can this man be_, Wooseok thought, but at the same time, he was a little relieved that Seungyoun was so oblivious. Actually, he didn’t know how to feel anymore. On one hand, his goal was to test the waters, see if Seungyoun had any feelings for him, and also send him signals that would give him the courage to make the first move. But on the other hand, he was still scared. He knew how to flirt, obviously, he took pride in being _amazing _at it, but with Seungyoun, it was different. He wasn’t just any objectively attractive and slightly older businessman in a sketchy bar, and Wooseok wasn’t just bored and looking for free drinks. Once it came to someone he actually cared about, someone he didn’t want to risk losing, all his confidence vanished and he felt sixteen again.

“Maybe I do” Wooseok said confidently. He had to stick to the plan, just as Sejin instructed him.

“Oooh, do tell!” Seungyoun got excited “Who is he? Oh! Don’t tell me you fell for your best friend’s boyfriend!”

“Ew, no, I’d never steal Jinhyuk’s boyfriend. But I’m not going to tell you who I like.”

“Fine, then I won’t tell you either.”

“Wait, you like someone?! Why didn’t you tell me?!” Wooseok almost choked. Well, it’s game over for him now.

“Why didn’t _you _tell _me_?” Seungyoun, being the little shit he is, returned his question.

“Fine, you don’t have to tell me” Wooseok crossed his arms in his signature childish manner “I don’t care anyway.”

“Oh you do, princess, you want to know everything about everyone” Seungyoun smirked. It was unfair how he was winning the game he didn’t even know they were playing, and Wooseok, the creator of the game, found himself tripping over his own feet.

“What did you just call me?” Wooseok’s eyes blew wide. It was such a dumb generic nickname that was only made for teenage girls, so why did Wooseok want to hear Seungyoun say it again?

“_Princess_” Seungyoun repeated, dragging the syllables out even more this time “Because you’re a spoiled brat.”

Wooseok’s mind was torn between a minimalistic “fuck you” and a less minimalistic “well punish me, then”, but he just ended up proving Seungyoun right by turning his head to the side. At least they got off the crushes subject.

“I’m gonna tell Jinhyuk you’re bullying me.”

“Whining to your manager when someone tells you what you need to hear” Seungyoun clicked his tongue disapprovingly “Classic princess behavior. Are you gonna get me decapitated too?”

“Bitch, I might” Wooseok said seriously, but it was hard to keep his glare sharp when Seungyoun was laughing at him so adorably “Jinhyuk could break your neck without blinking.”

“Don’t worry about me, I trained soccer for seven years!”

Wooseok decided there was no point in fighting with Seungyoun and decided to ignore him. Even before, he enjoyed fighting with Seungyoun like this, because he liked teasing his friends in general (Jinhyuk had called him out on being a sadist several times). But now that he accepted his feelings towards Seungyoun, making him laugh left him feeling so satisfied, like Seungyoun’s happiness was the only thing that mattered and now that it was ensured, his day was successful and there was nothing else to worry about.

As for Seungyoun’s feelings, Wooseok could only judge by the glimpses he caught of him every time he peeked from behind the canvas – he couldn’t wipe that dumb smile off of his face even as he painted.

* * *

“And then this headass goes ’do you have anyone you’d give marimongs to?’” Wooseok fumed with anger, and made his imitation of Seungyoun’s voice extra high-pitched as a unique form of revenge “I literally _just gave you _a marimong, you stupid piece of shit!”

“Holy shit, I love him!” Jinhyuk clapped his arms while trying to catch his breath. Wooseok could see that this was first-class entertainment to him, but he didn’t appreciate it. After a stressful and unsuccessful first day of Operation Seduce Seungyoun, all he wanted was to vent to his best friend without being ridiculed, but obviously that was too much to ask for.

“I hate him” Wooseok deadpanned “Men really are trash.”

“Please, you have no right to be mad, because you’re both equally dumb” Jinhyuk rolled his eyes at Wooseok’s all-too-familiar theatrics.

“And how exactly am I on the same intellectual level as that Neanderthal?”

“Because he likes you too, you stubborn idiot!” Jinhyuk practically shouted at his face.

“How would _you _know, you’ve never even met him” Wooseok didn’t want to back out. Despite the fact that he was in love and he knew he was objectively attractive, Wooseok didn’t want to get ahead of himself. Harboring false hope would only leave him feeling dumber if his plan doesn’t work out, so he was grasping for concrete evidence, any sign from Seungyoun that would give him the right to hope.

“Oh my god, do I really need to spell it out for you?” Jinhyuk laughed “He lets you bully him non-stop, he was nice and friendly to you even when you were acting like a bitch, he listens to you patiently, he calls you _princess_, do I need to go on?”

“Yes, please” Wooseok said without a hint of sarcasm. Jinhyuk might’ve just been telling him what he wanted to hear, but what’s wrong with wanting to be positive? He wasn’t ready to admit defeat – he wanted to keep fighting for Seungyoun.

“Remember the paintings you told me about? He’d ask what’s your favorite color, and then he’d paint you in that color, or when you had a bad day, he painted you with a fucking _raincoat _to cheer you up! He’s always trying to make you happy!”

“That’s just _sometimes_, but sometimes he just paints things that make no sense. Like, I don’t know, butterflies. That had nothing to do with me.”

“Are you kidding me right now?” Jinhyuk stared at him in disbelief “You really don’t know what _butterflies _mean? Really? You know how when you fall in love, you feel – “ Oh. Jinhyuk might’ve had a point, and Wooseok _might_ have been oblivious.

“Fine, fine, I got it, I’m dumb!” Wooseok already cringed “So you’re saying he’s flirting with me through his paintings. That’s a little pathetic.”

“No, it’s romantic and smart and adorable” Jinhyuk corrected him “You’re just used to calling everything that’s remotely sweet ’pathetic’.”

“Okay, but what about the apples? And then the kimbap? How do you explain that?”

The moment Jinhyuk’s eyebrows shot up and his lips quirked into an exaggerated Cheshire cat smirk, Wooseok realized he had made a huge mistake. “Wooseok, he wants to – “

“Stop! Stop!”

* * *

_Thirteen days left_.

“You know, I feel really bad for whoever gets to date me, because he’ll have to live with the fact that he’s the ugly one in the relationship.”

He knew exactly what Jinhyuk would say – “Jesus, Wooseok, is _that _your idea of spontaneous flirting?!” But he had to get Jinhyuk’s nagging voice out of his head.

“Well, I’m actually really jealous of whoever gets to date me” Seungyoun returned the ball with the same self-promotional spirit “Because they’ll get pretty portraits and the best custom playlists and loooots of compliments.”

“Playlists?” Wooseok scrunched up his nose “That sounds gross.”

Wooseok wondered what kind of playlist Seungyoun would craft for him.

“Not as gross as you already calling your non-existent boyfriend ugly” Seungyoun chuckled.

“Okay, obviously he’s not _ugly_, maybe just... slightly less good-looking than me” Wooseok corrected himself. Let’s face it, Seungyoun was far from ugly, especially now that he took Wooseok’s advice and grew out his bangs. But he didn’t need to hear that from Wooseok.

“Wow, what an honor that must be for him. Make sure to put that in your wedding vows!”

“At least it won’t be cringy like _your_ wedding vows, that are probably going to be full of some poetic bullshit about how no artist, dead or alive, would ever come close to capturing their beauty, or some shit.”

“Imagine if we got married and I said you hold more beauty than the entire Louvre and then you just straight up called me ugly in front of all our friends and family.”

Holy shit, is Seungyoun actually flirting back? Did he get the hint? I mean, why would he mention their hypothetical _wedding _all of a sudden? Maybe he was just trying to be funny? The thought of marrying Seungyoun wasn’t all that strange, and it was time for Wooseok to stop functioning altogether.

Frankly, Wooseok didn’t know where this was going, and that’s what scared him the most. No one is afraid to love, not really, they’re just afraid of losing control over their own happiness, losing their confidence, the embarrassment and the pain of heartbreak. But now that Wooseok had made peace with all those petrifying possibilities, it only made space for new fears.

He didn’t know how to be in a relationship. He didn’t know what a healthy relationship was supposed to look like, how to be a good boyfriend, just _how _to give Seungyoun everything he wants to give him and everything he deserves. Even if, by some divine intervention, he started dating Seungyoun, Wooseok would live in fear of unintentionally ruining everything. So maybe, for his own good, it would be less painful if Seungyoun didn’t even return his feelings in the first place.

“Wait, let me get one thing straight” the Jinhyuk in his head said through laughter and tears “He talked about _marriage_ and you didn’t think he was flirting with you?! You are now officially the dumbest person I know, Kim Wooseok.”

* * *

_Ten days left_.

“So, Wooseokie, here’s your Weird question of the day” Seungyoun announced “What’s your ideal type?”

“A cute girl with double eyelids who calls me _oppa_” Wooseok recited with a stickily sweet voice. Seungyoun gave him a three-second open-mouthed stare, as if trying to assess if he’s kidding or not (even though he already knew it), and then they both burst into laughter.

“Oh my god, is _that _what you say in interviews?” Seungyoun asked after getting his breathing back to normal “That’s the straightest shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Exactly what I was aiming for” Wooseok smiled proudly. He tried to imagine doing an interview and saying his type is one particular painter with broad shoulders and a goofy but wonderful smile. How heartbreaking that would be to his fans.

“But really, you have to answer Weird question of the day.” Well, that was going to be harder to do without exposing himself. Without admitting that physically, Seungyoun was exactly his type from the start, and Wooseok was just one of those people who were weak for tall, dark and handsome, with a side of charisma and a snarky sense of humor.

“I mean, I never thought about it that much, because I never expected I’d want to be in a relationship” Wooseok said honestly, but in a roundabout way “I like guys who are taller than me, but I don’t really care about shit like double eyelids or hair color or whatever. Also, Jinhyuk says I have a thing for tattoos, but I think that was just like, three hook-ups.”

“Did you know I have nine tattoos?”

Okay, not even Wooseok thought that was remotely subtle. But he was too intrigued by this new piece of information to dwell on Seungyoun’s timing.

He asked Seungyoun about his tattoos and he could only roll up his sleeves to show two of them, but he explained each one and the meanings behind them. Some of them were a lot sweeter than Wooseok could’ve expected, like his parents’ birth years, and some told the stories of faraway places Seungyoun lived in, like Brazil and the Philippines. Wooseok was surprised by how much he found out about Seungyoun just from hearing about his tattoos, but it wasn’t unexpected that such a dedicated artist like him would want to make his skin a canvas too. Tattoos suited both his body and his personality.

“What about the gun on your hip?” Wooseok teased “Is that one also of great sentimental value to you?”

“Oh for sure, it’s the only memory I have of my 21st birthday when I got drunk and my equally drunk friends convinced me I was the hottest motherfucker ever” Seungyoun laughed “Well, to be honest, it still looks kind of hot.”

Wooseok was sure it does, though it wouldn’t hurt to check for himself. But admitting that out loud would be handing it to Seungyoun too easily. He hoped that he would one day get to see all nine of Seungyoun’s tattoos, trace them with his fingers, maybe even with his lips. Right now he could only use his imagination, but just the mental image of a shirtless Seungyoun with all his tattoos on full display made it hard enough for Wooseok to breathe.

“What about you?” Wooseok suddenly gathered the courage to ask “What’s your type?”

“Oooh, I was waiting for you to return my question one day!” Seungyoun sounded excited “Well, I’m not that specific when it comes to appearance either, but I gotta admit I like small and pretty people. Like dolls, you know? Makes you want to wrap them up in a blanket and protect them from the world. I also like people who are fun to paint, obviously, I can’t be with someone who doesn’t inspire me.”

“I knew you’d have to add something cringy like that” Wooseok giggled. Was he inspiring? He was small and pretty, he knew that much, but he still couldn’t get those voices out of his head that told him he was too boring. Seungyoun deserved someone who’s like him, larger than life. Not just another pretty face. So he turned quiet again.

What was he going to do? There were only ten days left. Ten days until Seungyoun’s under no obligation to see him ever again, ten days until he leaves the glass house forever and most likely loses his last chance to be with Seungyoun. All of a sudden, the thought of a future without Seungyoun in it felt unbearable. He just couldn’t go on living his life without ever telling Seungyoun about all these new feelings he showed him, without feeling all those tattoos under his own fingertips and learning the taste of Seungyoun’s smile.

It was now and never.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> congratulations wooseokie, you're officially the last one to know!  
yeah so anyway.... what if... i wrote an entire sejinhyuk prequel about how they got together, with lots of fluff and maybe jinhyuk's pov of the whole weishin story??? haha just kidding except i already have it planned out, i'm just wondering if anyone would be interested in that :)


	8. Chapter 8

The weekend wasn’t any kinder to them, and the dreaded last Monday appeared on the calendar.

Wooseok’s mind could just barely register the fact that in seven days, this wouldn’t be his life anymore. Come next Monday, he won’t be in the glass house with Seungyoun – instead, he’ll probably sleep in late and binge-watch some currently popular drama, waiting for Jinhyuk to call and tell him he has a new booking, which may or may not even happen. And Seungyoun will be busy preparing for the second part of the exhibition, the one where all sixty of these paintings will be spread out on the walls of the gallery, and the public will judge him even more mercilessly than they can right now, while they’re hidden in the glass house.

No matter what they do after the exhibition, the reality that they shared until now was imminently going to separate into two different realities, and Wooseok wasn’t ready to detach himself from Seungyoun completely. Even if they’re not co-workers anymore, and they never become lovers, he wanted more than anything for them to stay friends, because Seungyoun was one of the few people who didn’t drain him out, but gave him energy instead. But how would he convey that to him?

Things that truly mattered never came easily to Wooseok. Some people might’ve thought he got the world served on a silver platter when he was born with that face, but that was far from the truth. Sure, he could get the lady at the grocery store to give him a discount with just a little bit of aegyo, but nothing worth having is easily attained, not even when you’re Kim Wooseok. He was a 173cm tall model, first of all, which meant he had to work extra hard to earn his place in the industry, only to lose it again. But that was the first thing that taught him to never give up – in theory, it sounded impossible for any agency to scout him, because they all had strict rules about the minimum height of their models, but he still went to auditions and eventually found success.

“Operation Seduce Seungyoun”, however, didn’t follow the same pattern as his auditions; even though Wooseok tried time and time again, the most important words always got caught up in his throat. What was he even supposed to say? “I like you”? “I _love_ you”? Just invite him for coffee after work? None of that seemed like enough.

“This is our last week here, you know?” Seungyoun said out of the blue. Wooseok had been waiting for that conversation to arise.

“Yeah” Wooseok swallowed uncomfortably, because he didn’t have a good response to that “The exhibit ends this Sunday.”

“Are you going to miss me?” Seungyoun teased, but Wooseok knew by now that there had to be at least a little bit of genuine curiosity in there. There was melancholy, also. For some reason, it felt like his high school graduation all over again, those last few days of class that were lazily dipped in the spring sun and off-handed comments about the future and the past.

“Why would I miss someone getting on my nerves twenty-four-seven?” Wooseok rolled his eyes but, conversely, Seungyoun knew him well enough to know what he really meant.

“You’re going to DM me on Instagram, right?”

“No, I’m going to unfollow you.”  
“Come on, Wooseokie, can’t you at least give me false hope for another seven days?!” Seungyoun whined “You’re really not sad at all?”

“Well, I guess I got used to this” Wooseok gave in, but just a little “I made good memories here. And learned a lot, too.”

“Awww!” Seungyoun’s high-pitched scream nearly deafened him, and it was scarily similar to the sounds Jinhyuk let out when it came to anything Sejin-related “Don’t make me sentimental, we still have a whole week in front of us!”

“Exactly, so stop asking stupid questions” Wooseok summoned his courage “Like you don’t already know I’m going to miss this.” That I’m going to miss _you_.

“Well, now you got me started and I can’t stop anymore” Seungyoun protested “Let’s ask each other a lot of weird questions this week, okay?”

“Sure.”

“You’re excited to get back to your real job, right?” Seungyoun started, with a softer smile.

“_If_ I get back to it” Wooseok said bitterly “But at least now I’ve saved up enough money to repay Jinhyuk what I borrowed.”

“You’ll get booked again” Seungyoun said with a certainty Wooseok wanted to laugh at, had it not struck his heart the way it did “Haven’t you seen all the people that came to the exhibit? I’m sure I gave you at least _some _clout.”

He did notice the slowly growing audience that their exhibit had accumulated, he could feel their eyes burning holes into his face, but he wanted to think of it as a good sign for Seungyoun, for his _real_ first exhibit. He imagined the second part of this project would gain even more attention, that people would marvel at Seungyoun’s talent just like he did all this time, and he swallowed the remains of the possessiveness he felt over Seungyoun’s paintings. The paintings might be displayed for all the world to see now, but Wooseok knew their messages were meant for him.

“I don’t think anyone’s here for me. This is your breakthrough, your time to shine. I’ve already had my moment” Wooseok said, and he couldn’t feel sad about it. It’s just how the world worked.

“This is _our _moment” Seungyoun said, and Wooseok found his conviction almost scary “We’re going to do this together. Just like we’ve been doing these past two months.”

A smile bloomed on Wooseok’s face. Shyly, like a flower bud still partially tucked into frozen grass and remnants of the last snow. But it was there, and it was a beacon of hope. Because Seungyoun, from the bottom of his unwavering heart, made him a promise, and because he was one of those people who had the power to change everything for you.

He imagined Seungyoun and him finding success together, Seungyoun having his big breakthrough in the art circles while Wooseok gloriously returns to cover pages. They’d enjoy it together, ground each other when living out their dreams becomes too bewildering, and they would build their own metaphorical glass house where they could shine brightly. Even if only for a day, or a week, he let himself believe that the world now belonged to him and Seungyoun.

* * *

“So, what do you think?” Seungyoun asked as he showed him the painting. It was nice. It bloomed shyly, like a flower bud tucked into frozen grass and remnants of the last snow. There were also literal flowers blooming from the portrait’s cheeks, white gardenias, as Seungyoun explained. The painting was luminous, consisting only of soft lines and veiled in innocence, as if it was afraid to be louder than that.

And Wooseok knew what was missing. Something Wooseok was so sure was showing on his face by now, something that Seungyoun should’ve noticed, and definitely would’ve been able to convey with his colors if he had. And it was the only thing Wooseok needed to see in his paintings right now, just like he needed that raincoat then, it was one final message Seungyoun was supposed to send him. Then he’d know, and he’d have the courage to leap.

But maybe it was time to stop looking for validation from Seungyoun, and leap even if he doesn’t know if there’s ground on the other side to land on. Because that’s what love is.

“My eyes don’t look like that” Wooseok said matter-of-factly, but as he continued speaking his voice turned more and more frustrated “You’ve been reading my mind since I came here, but now that it matters, you don’t see me at all.”

Wooseok knew they were living on borrowed time. Now more than ever, there was a sense of urgency to his feelings, a premotion that what happens after he confesses can’t be worse than Seungyoun closing the door behind himself as he leaves Wooseok’s life, without ever hearing him out.

“Wait, what did I do?” Seungyoun looked worried sick, but he was still only looking at his painting, trying to pick out its flaws. He still didn’t understand.

“You missed something. You always miss something” Wooseok’s voice became small, so small that it sounded like it would break once it left his mouth “The way I look at you. The way I love you.”

Before Seungyoun could even get a word to leave his gaping mouth, Wooseok sprinted out of the gallery. Seungyoun was left alone and frozen in the glass house, too shocked to chase him.

* * *

Wooseok slammed the door of his agency’s car a bit too forcefully, but luckily his driver was a mild-mannered old man who never meddled into his life. His heart was beating out of his chest like he was being chased by wild animals, and the car ride felt excruciatingly long given how much he just _needed _to lock himself inside his apartment and never come out.

But before he’s dead to the world, he needs to inform Jinhyuk. Who, luckily, never took longer than two rings to answer his calls, even when he was drowning in work.

“I fucked up” he swallowed.

“Oh my god, did you confess?!” Wooseok could almost hear Jinhyuk jumping up from his chair at the other end of the line. Why did he sound just as panicked as Wooseok?!

“Worse” Wooseok said, still struggling to catch his breath for some reason “I, I used _the word_. I don’t know why I fucking did that, I didn’t even plan on saying anything today, I just – it just happened!”

“Wait, wait, calm down” Jinhyuk tried to soothe him when he realized Wooseok wasn’t just being dramatic, he was genuinely panicking “What did he say?”

“He didn’t say anything. I ran out before he could reply.”

“Okay, okay, so it’s not a rejection” Jinhyuk reasoned “Listen to me. First of all, you need to get your shit together, and then you need to call him. Do you think Seungyoun’s just gonna come to work tomorrow and act like nothing’s happened? You have to finish what you’ve started.”

“Thanks, but no thanks” Wooseok laughed as if Jinhyuk’s advice was completely ridiculous, but at least he was laughing “Tell Sejin to pack his bags, we’re leaving Korea tomorrow morning.”

“Can you stop being a drama queen for one second and listen to me? Talk. To. Seungyoun. It’s the only thing you can do.” Silence. Jinhyuk gave him more time to think, but he knew Wooseok would rather die than listen to anyone. “Okay, you’ve left me with no choice.”

Before Wooseok could ask what that was supposed to mean, Jinhyuk hung up on, leaving him even more frustrated than before. But it was a distraction at least. A distraction from the fact that there were already five new messages from Seungyoun in his notifications, just as hard to ignore as they were to open. He threw his phone to the other seat and sunk into his sweater as if it was a portal to a different universe, one where he didn’t have to deal with Seungyoun or Jinhyuk or his feelings or anyone or anything.

* * *

The damage control procedure was quite simple. He locked the door, escaped from his clothes as if they were on fire, changed into his sweats and took two cans of beer from his fridge – one to gulp down before he even reaches his bedroom door, and the other one to drink while he’s suffocating in three of his fluffiest blankets.

He curled up in his bed with an empty mind. It felt like listening to TV static, because there was no substance to his thoughts. Whenever he tried to catch one of those blurry words that floated around his head, it felt like a thread of a kite slipping through his fingers and into thin air. Maybe it was for the best, because he doubted those kites carried any good news.

When he heard the first knock on his door, he decided it was just a product of his imagination. He didn’t have the strength to stand up and deal with anyone right now, so even if it’s his landlord coming to say he’s getting evicted, so be it. The world could wait until tomorrow to burn down, right now he just needed some sleep.

The second round of knocks were probably telemarketers, or a drunk neighbor trying to find his apartment, or a cult wishing to recruit him or something. He just pulled the blankets higher over his head to drown out the persistent tapping.

And then there was the damn _doorbell_, the sound Wooseok hated more than anything in the world, and Wooseok knew it couldn’t be anyone but Jinhyuk.

Destroying his intricate construction of blankets was heartbreaking, and he was ready to yell Jinhyuk’s ear off about it. He probably thought it was crucial for him to have a serious conversation right now, over some alcohol or comfort food, and make sure Wooseok doesn’t spiral, because he rarely took Wooseok’s “leave me alone” for an answer. As annoyed as he was, maybe if Jinhyuk brought chicken feet he won’t shut the door right back in his face.

Thank god peepholes were a thing, because the man standing in front of his apartment definitely wasn’t Jinhyuk. There really was nothing he couldn’t expect from Seungyoun.

“Wooseokie, I know you’re inside!” Seungyoun shouted once he realized Wooseok wasn’t going to open the door any time soon. Wooseok slid down his side of the door as if Seungyoun would kick it down if he doesn’t protect it with the weight of his body. Only then did it dawn upon him that he really, really, fucked up.

“How the fuck did you get to my apartment? You don’t even know where I live” Wooseok said through the door, and he was aware of how ridiculous this situation was, but he wasn’t ready to look Seungyoun in the eye. He knew he was only putting off the inevitable, and that he was probably making a scene again, but something about this was so much like him and Seungyoun. Both leaning on opposite sides of the door instead of opening it, yelling like children and always finding the most ridiculous ways to communicate instead of just using words. Because that was too plain for people like them.

“Oh, I gotta thank Jinhyuk for that, he drove me here” Seungyoun said nonchalantly, as if Jinhyuk was his childhood friend and not Wooseok’s. Wooseok should’ve known those two would get along too well for his own good.

“Was that what he – “ dots started connecting in Wooseok’s head “You know what, I don’t even want to know. I hate you both.”

“But seriously” Seungyoun interjected “Why did you run away?”

Wooseok didn’t have an answer to that. It was an instinct, and it was better than staying for the rejection. So he stayed silent.

“Listen, I’m not going to go away until you open this door” Seungyoun informed him, not threatening but not quite joking either “We’re gonna talk about it whether you like it or not, princess.”

Wooseok couldn’t stop himself from smiling at the familiar nickname, but he still couldn’t be sure that Seungyoun didn’t just come here to reject him properly. Maybe if he replied to his barrage of texts he could’ve avoided the face-to-face embarrassment, but it was too late.

“Wooseokie? Are you there?” Seungyoun tried again “Open up, doll.”

_Doll. “I like small and pretty people. Like dolls, you know?” _And Wooseok was entirely too weak. After a single moment of hesitation, a single thought of “there’s no going back”, he started twisting the key and slowly pulled the door open.

“Look, I’m not really in the mood for this conversation right now, so – “

“Good, ’cause neither am I.”

Once their eyes met at the doorway, they both felt the same impulse course through them and erase all the words they might’ve had to say to each other. Words are useless, anyway.

Two months of falling in love exploded into one forceful kiss. There was no way to say who leaned in first, all Wooseok knew was that the sigh of relief that Seungyoun let out fit perfectly into his own mouth. There was no time for shy pecks and slow starts – they poured their all into it. Because that was the Wooseok and Seungyoun way of doing things.

The moment their lips crashed into each other, there was a burst of burgundy behind his eyelids. Wooseok couldn’t resist being pulled into the hurricane, but he didn’t let himself be surprised by it – he unashamedly rivaled Seungyoun’s intensity and it was light years away from any kiss he’d ever had. He kissed Seungyoun with a mix of warmth and passion he didn’t know he had in him, and Seungyoun kissed him the way he painted him – with a feverish excitement yet so, so skillfully. Wooseok decided that he was kissing the wrong people all along, and that the only men worth kissing were the ones who made an art out of it.

Wooseok’s slim fingers were soon clutching onto Seungyoun’s shirt like it was the only thing connecting him to reality, and Seungyoun’s hands were placed on both sides of Wooseok’s small face, guiding him deeper into the kiss. Wooseok had no idea how good it felt to kiss the person you love, how it felt like so much more than a simple clashing of tongues and lips. He easily surrendered to Seungyoun, and he didn’t have to think about anything, only enjoyed the lightness of his head and the heat under his skin.

Once they somehow stumbled onto Wooseok’s couch, they finally ran out of breath.

“Hey” Wooseok said casually as if his cheeks weren’t an unnatural shade of crimson.

“Hey” Seungyoun smiled from above him, but he was just as disheveled and blissed out as Wooseok. His lips were red and swollen, as much as Wooseok’s probably, and his eyelids looked heavy with something soft and calm that Wooseok couldn’t decipher.

“You scared me.”

“Sorry,” Seungyoun kept smiling like a lovestruck idiot “I’ve wanted to do that for a long time. I couldn’t hold back anymore.”

“But how did _Jinhyuk _even find you?!” Wooseok finally asked.

“I don’t know, he just DM’ed me on Instagram to tell me he’ll be at the gallery in five minutes” Seungyoun shrugged “He’s a great guy, we had a little bonding moment in the car.”

“Ew, stalkers” Wooseok scrunched up his nose and they both laughed. It felt so natural, laying next to Seungyoun on a couch too small to be comfortable for two people, their bodies pressing together in a way that let them feel the resonating each other’s laughter. It felt like one of those boring things Wooseok could never get bored of.

“Do you know what white gardenias mean?” Seungyoun asked suddenly.

“White gardenias, the flowers you painted today?”

Seungyoun nodded. “They represent purity and sweetness, but their purpose is to convey joy and secret love. They tell the receiver ’_You are lovely_’.”

Wooseok looked up at Seungyoun with wide, glowing eyes. For the first time in his life, he was too busy being in love to enjoy being loved. For the first time, he thought that love itself was simple and pure. It was nothing but a collection of messy brushstrokes that formed white gardenias on his cheeks. Love felt overwhelmingly sweet on his tongue, like eating too much honey, and brought the same joy as the first day of summer vacation when he was a kid. But that may be just because he was in love with Cho Seungyoun, and Cho Seungyoun loved him back.

“So you actually like me? You didn’t just kiss me now so you could fuck me on this shitty old couch?” Wooseok wanted to confirm.

Seungyoun laughed for so long that Wooseok wanted to get angry at him, but he couldn’t help it, somewhere along the way he started enjoying Seungyoun’s annoying laughter. He always laughed at things that weren’t even funny, and sometimes his face got completely distorted and ugly, but Wooseok was still in his arms, close enough to feel that happiness echo through Seungyoun’s chest, so he can laugh all he wants, because Wooseok still wins.

“I _actually _like you, Kim Wooseok” he finally said “I like you _a_ _lot_, so much that I couldn’t bear to fuck you before I treat you to a fancy dinner and then cover the bed with rose petals and light some scented candles.”

“Are you going to take me out to dinner right now?”

“Well, I will if you’re hungry. But honestly, right now I just feel like kissing you.” Wooseok’s cheeks lit up again at Seungyoun’s straightforwardness, but he couldn’t let him win. He wanted to be the one to initiate the kiss this time.

So they might have spent a stupid amount of time making out, like two teenagers who didn’t have anything better to do, but it was hard to get enough of that euphoria. It was a high that came just from being enveloped in each other, from finally acting on all the feelings they’d been restricting, and even when they pulled away to breathe, they couldn’t come down completely.

Wooseok invited Seungyoun to stay the night and he accepted, but stayed firm on his “after dinner” policy. He was being ridiculous as usual, but Wooseok didn’t care, because for the first time in his life, he got to fall asleep next to someone he loved. Seungyoun was warm just like the first time Wooseok hugged him at the gallery, but he was a blanket-stealing menace who was glued to Wooseok’s side even in his sleep, and Wooseok decided that if he woke up cuddled up into Seungyoun’s chest, it could easily be brushed off as an accident.

* * *

“So, today is a special day.”

“Yeah, the last day of the exhibit.”

“No, dumbass, it’s our six-day anniversary!” Seungyoun shook his head.

“Oh my god, that’s not even a real thing” Wooseok rolled his eyes “So, what are we doing for our, khm, _six-day anniversary_?”

Even though not even a full week had passed since they got together, he learned to go along with Seungyoun’s antics, because they only got dumber by the day. To be quite honest, he didn’t know how those six days even passed by him, because working together was so much fun when there wasn’t any strange tension between them. It reminded him of the beginnings of their friendship – they sang together and laughed and teased, just like they did before, only now they could (well, Seungyoun could) openly say sappy things and they spent most of their lunch break making out in the supply closet.

“Well first of all, _I_ am painting my best painting yet” Seungyoun announced today’s agenda “Then, at six o’clock, we’re stopping by the convenience store to get some wine, and then we’re going to my house.”

“To do what, listen to your vinyl records and take polaroids?” Wooseok teased, because that’s exactly the kind of person Seungyoun was.

“Uh, maybe...” Seungyoun admitted “And other things too! Most importantly, we’re getting drunk.”

“I like that plan” Wooseok agreed “But you better have something even more impressive ready for our twelve-day anniversary.”

“You’re right, I’ll think about it” Seungyoun smiled, squeezing out a wide variety of colors onto his palette. Wooseok already knew this canvas was going to become a spectacle by six o’clock, he could see it in the fire of Seungyoun’s eyes – he already had something grand in mind, and he was so excited to make it come to life.

He let Seungyoun work on his self-proclaimed “masterpiece” in silence, knowing that this would be the last time he gets to see him work like this, in this place that belonged only to them. He remembered how much he loved watching Seungyoun do what he loves, how it healed him on the worst of his days, and how this very sight was what changed his perception of love. He knew there was no reason to be sad about the exhibition ending, not now that they’re officially dating, but he couldn’t help but feel a pull on his heart that felt like moving away from home.

He remembered how desperate he felt when he got this job, like it was the end of the world as he knew it, and it was, in a way, but in a very positive way. It was also a beginning, in more ways than one, but he still didn’t know all the meanings of that beginning. All he knew was that a life with Seungyoun entailed endless surprises, surprises that were sometimes more like miracles, and that he now knew how to accept all kinds of miracles.

* * *

Seungyoun’s last painting was an eruption of love.

In it, Wooseok was wearing a white blouse with a black ribbon around his collar, which made him look especially angelic, and matched well with the pastel pink background that looked like the sky during a spring sunset. It was a characteristically Seungyoun interpretation of Wooseok – all doe eyes and softly parted lips and rosy cheeks. But it was all the small details that really did it for Wooseok.

In his right hand was a red apple, with only one bite taken out of it. It was pasted straight from the first painting Seungyoun ever painted of him, the clumsy and boyish one where red apples replaced his cheeks. Then there were the flowers, all the flowers Seungyoun had ever painted him with: red roses, pink chrysanthemums and white gardenias scattered around his hair. Lying peacefully on top of one of the gardenias was a yellow butterfly, but this time, Wooseok wasn’t looking at him with disgust – it became a part of him.

Seungyoun, of course, didn’t miss the love bite blooming on real Wooseok’s neck, another form of his artistic expression that Wooseok couldn’t hide even with layers upon layers of concealer. It was a souvenir from two nights ago, after Seungyoun finally took him out for the long-awaited dinner, although it wasn’t as “fancy” as promised, just a small restaurant with exceptionally spicy chicken feet.

The most important thing for Wooseok, though, was that Seungyoun finally got his message. Wooseok’s eyes in the painting weren’t just empty beauty anymore, didn’t exist just for Seungyoun to admire – they admired Seungyoun instead. Just as Wooseok thought, Seungyoun was able to paint the overflowing love in his eyes, and that’s how he knew he was able to convey his emotions to Seungyoun. Even though he didn’t say it out loud, and still used small jabs as his love language instead, Seungyoun knew how much he truly meant to Wooseok, and that put his heart at ease.

“What do you think?” Seungyoun asked, full of pride and hope.

“Would’ve looked better with a raincoat filter” Wooseok shrugged, but he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. It was a beautiful painting, really was Seungyoun’s best work yet, because Seungyoun always kept his promises. And this painting was a promise itself – a promise that all of this was only a prologue to all the happiness they’re going to experience together.

“Well, you see, I was hoping you won’t need a raincoat anymore” Seungyoun said as he snaked his arms around Wooseok’s waist to hug him from behind “Now that you have me.”

Wooseok turned around in Seungyoun’s loose grip so that they were facing each other, just so he could directly frown at Seungyoun’s awful pick-up line and see him laugh at Wooseok’s angry face. But once he realized that the gallery was empty, Wooseok stood on his tiptoes and kissed Seungyoun in the glass house for the first and last time. They both knew the meaning of that kiss.

“C’mon, let’s go buy that wine.”

* * *

Seungyoun’s apartment was a forty-minute walk away from the gallery, in a peaceful but bubbly neighborhood full of coffee shops and kids’ playgrounds. It was much smaller than Wooseok’s apartment, smaller than most apartments actually, with the living room, kitchen and dining room all condensed into one, but Seungyoun said he liked it that way. The interior was exactly what Wooseok had expected it to be – fairy lights hung from the ceiling, walls filled with art, movie posters and quotes in foreign languages, a big bookshelf and a minimal amount of furniture. It reminded him of a cozy little cafe where students could study peacefully, couples could go on their first dates and artists could sketch flowers.

“Welcome to the Cho residency” he spread his arms and spun around at the entrance “The record player is in my bedroom though, so let’s go there. I’ll bring something to eat.”

Finding the bedroom door in such a small apartment was an easy task, and the inside looked the same as the living room, with only enough space for a double bed, a closet and a desk. Above Seungyoun’s headboard was a big cloud of photos with his friends, and Wooseok allowed himself to take a closer look. It wasn’t a surprise that Seungyoun had many friends, but Wooseok was caught off guard by the fondness those pictures made him feel. In a few of the pictures, he was hugging kids that looked almost half his age, and he looked so protective over them, like a proud older brother. In some, he was throwing peace signs with a guy who would’ve looked scary, if it weren’t for his love for making a duckface, and another recurring character was a cute short girl who always looked annoyed with Seungyoun.

“Straight to sniffing around, huh?” Seungyoun teased as he entered the room, two big bowls of snacks in his hands. Wooseok almost jumped out of his skin.

Seungyoun put the bowls and the wine bottles down on the floor and sat there, which Wooseok took as a sign to do the same. “The only right way to listen to records is sitting on the floor” Seungyoun explained before Wooseok could even ask “If you lay on the bed, it’s too dramatic, and if you sit at the desk, you can’t enjoy it properly.”

“This isn’t some black-and-white French movie” Wooseok rolled his eyes.

“Not with that attitude” Seungyoun pouted “So, shall we start drinking?”

“You didn’t even bring wine glasses?”

“Well, um... I don’t really own wine glasses. I’m usually a ’from the bottle’ kind of guy” Seungyoun admitted sheepishly.

“Sure, let’s drink like cavemen” Wooseok laughed and brought his bottle to Seungyoun’s to cheers. He took a big gulp to start the night with, and he didn’t usually like the taste of wine, but he liked the atmosphere of Seungyoun’s warm room, liked that he could feel Seungyoun’s scent all around him, and just that already made him feel some type of intoxicated.

Seungyoun browsed through his stack of records (and he didn’t have many of them, he explained, because they’re expensive and the record player was an entirely impulsive investment), until he found something that put a big excited smile on his face. Wooseok recognized the song from the first few beats, because it was the song he liked falling asleep to. And he liked it even better when Seungyoun was singing it.

“Do you know what this song is about?” Seungyoun asked him after the first chorus. Wooseok had to admit he never read the lyrics, just enjoyed the nice melody.

“The chorus goes like: _just because it won’t come easily, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try_” Seungyoun translated “It made me think of you a lot, back when we first met. Because I knew it wouldn’t be easy to get to you, but something just wasn’t letting me give up.”

“Was it worth it?” Wooseok asked seriously, but there was a shy smile on his face when he thought about Seungyoun listening to this song and thinking about him.

“More than worth it” Seungyoun said, and backed it up by pressing a small kiss to Wooseok’s lips.

They let Bruno Major’s record play from start to finish, long after “their song” had ended, and the wine bottles were soon emptied. Seungyoun noticed most of Wooseok’s attention was still on the collage by his headboard, so he started talking about his friends and Wooseok tried connecting faces to the stories. The one who liked to make kissy faces at the camera (and occasionally Seungyoun) was Hangyul, the high school best friend that Seungyoun had a crush on for a while, and he was now back in his hometown of Incheon for college, so they couldn’t see each other often. The baby-faced friends were Dongpyo, Eunsang, Hyeongjun and Dohyon, “and don’t tell anyone, but Dohyon is my favorite child”. The girl that Wooseok liked from the start was Jimin, and she was indeed sick of Seungyoun’s bullshit.

“You’ll meet some of them on the opening night next week” Seungyoun concluded “I mean, Jimin is on tour right now and Hangyul probably can’t come, but at least you’ll see all my adorable sons. I’m tired of being a single father of four, you know.”

“Wait, your opening night is next week?”

“Yeah, on the 21st. That’s like, four days I think?” Seungyoun tried to count, but his brain was already a little fuzzy from the alcohol.

“Are you worried?”

“I’m worried about my speech, honestly” Seungyoun admitted “I’m not good at memorizing long ass texts, or writing them, for that matter. I don’t even know why I gotta hold a speech, it’s just a dumb formality, but I still can’t make a fool out of myself in front of all those people, y’know?”

“Well, why don’t you just look at your paintings and then say what you want the viewers to know about them?” Wooseok suggested.

“But that’s the thing, I shouldn’t be _telling them _what to look for, they need to find it on their own” Seungyoun insisted.

“Urgh, artists” Wooseok rolled his eyes “Maybe tell a little backstory? Like, you never even told _me _how you got the idea to do this project.”

“That’s a great idea!” Seungyoun beamed “I knew I had the smartest boyfriend.”

“Cheers to that!” Wooseok winked and their almost-empty bottles clinked loudly.

In hindsight, Wooseok probably should’ve told Seungyoun that red wine was the only alcohol that could make him absolutely lose control. And since he knew it, he probably shouldn’t have drank an entire bottle by himself and made a competition out of it, but it was too late to think about that now. He did it because he _wanted_ to lose control with Seungyoun – he didn’t care about the possibility of saying something embarrassing or suddenly getting the urge to sing Twice songs from the top of his lungs, because it was Seungyoun and he deserved all of Wooseok, even the sides of him that could only be good for blackmail material.

After decades of constantly worrying about being perfect, of racing with himself to meet everyone’s expectations, after seven years of sitting pretty in the spotlight and biting his tongue, he found a safe place where he could be himself and still be adored and loved unconditionally. It turned out to be a bedroom floor cluttered with unfinished sketches and two empty bottles of wine, where a foreign record was playing while Seungyoun looked at him like he was the sun. It was quite ironic, really, because everyone knew Seungyoun was the sun.

And in hindsight, he should’ve expected The Sun to be an affectionate and clingy drunk who liked to talk about nonsense and somehow only got louder as time passed. If Seungyoun was a child when he was sober, he was an absolute baby while drunk, and Wooseok kind of loved it.

The peak of the night was definitely when Wooseok got bored of Seungyoun’s indie records and took out his phone to play some “real music”, which in Wooseok’s language meant Taemin’s entire discography. When ’Move’ started playing, all hell broke lose as Wooseok got the brilliant idea to _dance_, even though he was possibly world’s least talented dancer. But he was so drunk and so confident in his own sex appeal that Seungyoun wouldn’t have said a word, if he hadn’t been equally drunk and Wooseok hadn’t reminded him of that one funny lizard video Hangyul had sent him. Wooseok, however, didn’t appreciate that comparison and decided to frown and ignore Seungyoun, until he was tackled down to the floor by an extravagant amount of kisses.

Maybe Seungyoun was right, and the only correct way to listen to music was lying on the floor. Preferably with a very cute boy who liked kissing you a little too much.

Drunk Wooseok was completely entranced by Seungyoun. He touched all over his face, but carefully, as if he was inspecting a piece of art, traced his jawline and used the tip of his nose as a trampoline. And as expected, Seungyoun just laughed, throughoutly enjoying all the attention he was getting. Wooseok’s eyes were comically fixated on whichever part of Seungyoun’s face he was currently playing with, and sometimes he even accompanied the movement of his fingers with silly whispers of ’woosh’ and ’boop’, as if he was painting shapes on Seungyoun’s skin. It was all too adorable.

“Why are you laughing at me again?!” he furrowed his brows at Seungyoun.

“You’re pretty” Seungyoun slurred instead of responding, because he didn’t really have a reason to laugh, he was just happy to be there with Wooseok, right under his gentle fingers and those sparkling eyes.

“Say it again.”

“You’re pretty.”

And just like that, Seungyoun decided to turn the tables and be the one to assault Wooseok this time. He rolled them both over until he was on top of Wooseok, and then came the barrage of little kisses, each one heart-fluttering and punctuated with a soft whisper of “pretty”. Just like Wooseok had mapped out Seungyoun’s features moments earlier, Seungyoun was now kissing every inch of his face, from his forehead all the way down to his jaw. Unlike the first time, he was now slower and less messy, taking his time to enjoy as much of Wooseok’s skin as possible.

Wooseok knew he was laughing because of the wine and the way Seungyoun’s breath tickled his neck, but he couldn’t help thinking – this was the happiest he had been in his entire life. He thought true happiness could only stem from personal achievements, because it was something that depended almost fully on your own efforts, but he learned the hard way that even success can crumble in a second without you having a say in it. There were no guarantees in life, and even though he was Kim Wooseok, he wasn’t bigger than destiny. So in that moment, on Seungyoun’s bedroom floor, he accepted that just because an eternity with Seungyoun wasn’t guaranteed, doesn’t mean the thought of it can’t make him happy. It was, after all, a very nice thought to have in your sleepy mind.

Almost an hour of aimless kissing and blabbering later, Wooseok already felt drowsy from the wine, and three seconds away from falling asleep on the hardwood floor.

“Carry me” he ordered. Seungyoun, being the lovestruck idiot he is, had no choice but to jump up on his feet, which made him incredibly dizzy and _almost _made him puke and then fall back down, but somehow he managed to retrieve his balance.

Wooseok even extended his arms up at him like a baby waiting to be picked up, and then wrapped them around him like a koala once he was finally above the floor. Seungyoun was pretty impressed with himself for carrying Wooseok’s sleep-heavy body bridal style, too bad Wooseok was too out of it to admire his strength too.

“Where to, princess?” he asked like a true servant waiting for orders.

“The bed” Wooseok mumbled and tried to point in the general direction of the bed, which he managed to miss completely even in the small room.

Seungyoun let him down gently on his bed and took a spare blanket from the closet to keep him extra warm, and Wooseok accepted it smugly like a kitten possessively claiming its toy. How was Wooseok so dorky and adorable when he got drunk? Seungyoun started suspecting that this soft, energetic Wooseok was the true Wooseok, always hidden beneath the pristine mask that he was forced to wear, or forced himself to wear. He hoped he’d get to see him melt like this more often, even when they’re sober. Ideally, that he’ll be the one who makes him melt.

“Aw, you’re falling asleep now?” Seungyoun whined “Just when we were starting to have fun?”

“We’re always having fun” Wooseok mumbled into his blanket “Sleep.”

“Can’t argue with that” Seungyoun smiled as he turned off the lights “Good night, baby doll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SEUNGSEOK CANON SEUNGSEOK MARRIED HOW ARE WE FEELING
> 
> Man, if that wasn't the fluffiest thing I've ever written. I was nervous to finally write this so I just went full self-indulgence, oops. Tune in next time for even more happy boyfriends! <3
> 
> PS. If the next update takes me a bit longer than usual or I don't reply to some comments, it's just because I'm getting surgery on Monday and probably won't be able to write at all next week :( I wanted to put that out there just in case, but I'll still make sure to write a good last chapter <3


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is only the beginning.

“Come on, you’re going to do great” Wooseok assured him as fixed his tie. He was about to give Seungyoun a lecture about how a 24-year-old man should really know how to tie his own tie, but then he realized his hands were shaking so hard that even if he knew how, he still wouldn’t have been able to do it.

“But what if I forget my speech?”

“Then just improvise” Wooseok said simply “Nobody cares about the damn speech anyway, they’re all here to see your paintings. And we both know your paintings are beautiful, you can’t argue with that.”

“That’s only because _you’re _beautiful” Seungyoun smirked and planted a kiss on top of Wooseok’s head.

“Okay, you’re ready” Wooseok announced as he straightened out the last crinkle in Seungyoun’s new suit. He had to admit, Seungyoun looked _amazing _in a suit. No, better than amazing – he looked so good that Wooseok wanted to rip it off of him and then tie him to the bed with that necktie, but they had an exhibition to attend first. Seungyoun’s very first solo exhibition.

“Do I get a good luck kiss?” Seungyoun asked with his best puppy eyes, and Wooseok had no choice but to give in.

“Good luck” he whispered against Seungyoun’s lips “Not that you need it.” After one last reassuring smile and squeeze of a hand, Wooseok walked out of the secluded little office and into the main hall of the gallery. He wanted to give Seungyoun a few more moments alone to practice his speech, since he was too shy to let Wooseok hear it, and check out the atmosphere that was building in the gallery.

The gallery looked different at night, less cozy than it was when he worked there and more sophisticated, but Wooseok still didn’t feel out of place. The crowd that had gathered consisted mostly of neatly-dressed middle-aged people who looked like they truly enjoyed art and weren’t there just to display their status, and Wooseok spotted groups of college kids too, probably Seungyoun’s underclassmen from the Academy who were familiar with his work. Jinhyuk did say, when he first told him about this job, that Seungyoun did very well on his graduation exhibition, so it wasn’t a surprise that the gallery was full of people anticipating his official debut. Wooseok’s heart was at peace, knowing how happy Seungyoun will be once he comes here and sees how many people came to support him.

In all honesty, Wooseok hadn’t been to that many art exhibitions, much less been invited to an opening, so he wasn’t sure what to expect. He was ashamed to admit that the last time he visited a museum was during a high school field trip, but Seungyoun already had grand plans of changing that, and always talked about all the art he had to show to Wooseok. Tonight was the start of that journey – on these walls, sixty-one of Wooseok’s portraits were framed and hung, and he wondered if they would look any different in this setting than they did when Seungyoun first showed them to him.

There was a sense of pride in being the first person who saw all of these paintings, even more so than in being the subject of them. He was there throughout their genesis, and he _knew_ their stories, without having to chase them under layers and layers of paint. He had two beautiful months to search for them in Seungyoun’s eyes, in his words and his shy smiles, and these paintings were only a highlight reel to him; the smallest details of something much more magnificent – the love that was born between him and Seungyoun.

Wooseok felt the pleasant commotion in the gallery shift at once, and he knew Seungyoun finally came out. He climbed to the small improvised podium with the humble confidence of someone who’s been an artist for a long time, but Wooseok knew he probably felt like a newborn deer on the inside. He quickly made his way through the crowd so he could stand in the first row, so it couldn’t slip Seungyoun’s mind that he was right there, cheering for him. For once, it felt good to be below the stage instead of in the center of it, but Wooseok promised himself he wouldn’t let Seungyoun outshine him, and that soon they’ll shine together, each on his own stage, but always close enough.

“Hello everyone” Seungyoun started speaking, his voice slightly thinner than usual “First of all, thank you all so much for coming today, I’m happy to see that so many people showed up, really, thank you. Uh, as you probably know, this is my first real exhibition, so I’m a little nervous right now, please forgive me if I make any mistakes.”

The crowd smiled at him sympathetically, but Wooseok knew Seungyoun was searching for him. Their eyes met and he only gave him a small but confident nod, like a whistle that signalized the beginning of a race. Seungyoun returned it with a relieved smile, like he only needed to make sure that Wooseok was watching his back, and he began.

“No matter how strict of a routine we build for ourselves, each day of our lives is made different by very subtle changes – by bumping into a friend you haven’t seen since high school, or hearing your favorite song in a coffee shop you’ve never visited before.

This is something that my mom said to me when I hit a very low point in my life. I was in the middle of a depressive episode caused by being too scared to go out there and live, and feeling lost in my own body. I had just graduated college and I had no idea what’s next – there’s no straight line to finding a stable career as an artist, and that uncertainty paralyzed me to the point where I couldn’t even paint anymore. My mom told me that I don’t need to wait for some extraordinary chance to strike, I can just paint what I already enjoy painting, but make it more extraordinary. Her kind words made me look at life in a simpler way again, and to just keep painting every day, even if it sucks.

So that’s how I got an idea that would challenge my creativity even during my art block – paint the same subject every day, but always make it different. Two months later I can say that I’ve gotten so much more from it than I originally wanted. This project has helped me overcome my perfectionism, sharpened my eye for detail, taught me how to work under pressure, but most importantly, it brought me to Wooseok.

Without my permission, this exhibition ended up being about Wooseok and what it feels like to fall in love with him. I can say that the two months I spent with him were fun and beautiful and life-changing, but everything else is for us to know and for you to look for in the paintings. So I’d like to end my speech now by expressing my most sincere gratitude. First of all, thank you mom for giving me this amazing idea and always being there for me through hard times. Thank you to the gallery owners, for seeing potential in my vision and making me do it in a way that I thought was too far out of my comfort zone, but really made a positive impact on the quality of my works.

And thank you, Kim Wooseok, for making living feel as exciting as painting. Please enjoy the exhibition.”

The audience applauded as Seungyoun stepped down from the podium, and walked straight to Wooseok. Wooseok, who was discretely wiping his glassy eyes before anyone could see him. He dragged Seungyoun by the sleeve and away from the front row, suddenly feeling like they were alone even in a room full of people.

“Did you like my speech?” Seungyoun asked quietly once they were face-to-face.

“I didn’t know you were going to say that” Wooseok started carefully, unsure of how to express everything Seungyoun’s speech had made him feel “Is that why you wouldn’t let me hear you rehearse?”

“Yes, but!” Seungyoun started as if he was apologizing “I met up with Jinhyuk first to ask him if it’s safe for your career if I talk about our relationship, and he got the green light from your company. See, I was thinking about everything!”

“Not that I’d care anyway” Wooseok smiled, and he laced his fingers together with Seungyoun’s because he could do that now, because everyone knew Seungyoun was his and his only “I liked your speech. I liked that it was a surprise.”

“I wouldn’t have done it without Jinhyuk’s permission, but, you know, when you have such an amazing boyfriend, it’s impossible to keep yourself from bragging a little.”

It was hard to be surrounded by proof of Seungyoun’s success without thinking about his own heavy burden, the fears for the future he silently carried around. He didn’t want to ruin Seungyoun’s moment, or to even talk about himself tonight, but he didn’t want to disappoint Seungyoun either. Seungyoun was on the path to becoming a well-known painter and Wooseok was, well, not as amazing as he looked in his eyes. He couldn’t escape the sinking feeling that Seungyoun had already outgrown him.

“I’m probably going to quit modeling” Wooseok finally said, unable to keep it in anymore “I’ll wait another month and if nothing changes, I’ll quit.”  
“Wait, baby, where’s that coming from?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a long time” Wooseok admitted “It’s just not enough to pay rent anymore. It’s the only thing I like doing, but... If it keeps me in debt with Jinhyuk and my mom, I’d rather go out and find something else I like. Who knows, I might even go to college. I had good grades in high school, I’d just have to pick a major and prepare for the entrance exam.”

“Listen, I’m with you no matter what, you know that, right?” Seungyoun said sincerely “But I couldn’t bear to see you give up on your dreams. If modeling makes you happy, then screw paying bills, I’ll just be your sugar daddy!” Wooseok had to giggle at his enthusiasm.

“But trust me, it won’t come to that. Once this exhibit kicks off, you’ll be more popular than ever. Even if you don’t believe in yourself, you can believe in me.”

Wooseok once again had one of those flashing thoughts that became more and more frequent the longer he was with Seungyoun – if he’s here, everything is going to be okay. No matter what happened for here on out, he had someone he can truly rely on, someone who accepts and supports him unconditionally. Seungyoun was right – even when he didn’t have faith in himself, Wooseok always had faith in Seungyoun.

“Let’s hope” he said with a smile “As much as I like the idea of you being my sugar daddy, I still want to be a model. But today’s not about me, so let’s go enjoy your exhibition.”

“Or...” Seungyoun whispered as he wiggled his eyebrows “We could just grab the champagne and then make out in the supply closet?”

Wooseok hit his chest, though he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t contemplated the idea. “Jinhyuk would kill us if we made out in the _supply closet _in these expensive as fuck suits he got for us.”

“Fine, fine” Seungyoun pouted “But you’ll have to make it up to me when we get home.”

“Don’t worry, I already have a surprise waiting for you at home” Wooseok winked.

Before Seungyoun could even close his slacked jaw, a dolphin-like voice echoed through the gallery.

“Hyung, we’re here!” a tall but baby-faced guy shouted, and Seungyoun’s face lit up the moment he spotted the owner of the familiar voice. Wooseok squinted, trying to see who could scream so enthusiastically in the middle of an art gallery, and recognized the person on some of the pictures on Seungyoun’s bedroom wall.

“Dohyonie!” he squealed as he hugged the boy “You made it!”

While the two of them hugged it out, Wooseok noticed another boy next to him, petite and incredibly beautiful. He reminded Wooseok of himself when he was younger, with those big round eyes and shy posture. The boy seemed to have noticed Wooseok’s eyes were on him, so they politely bowed to each other.

“Wooseokie, this is Dohyon, the little genius I told you about, and this is Hyeongjun, my second son” Seungyoun started introducing them euphorically “Dohyonie, Hyeongjunie, this is Wooseok, my adorable boyfriend.”

Wooseok blushed a little at being introduced to other people like that, but he secretly hoped it was something he’d hear a lot more in the future. He could barely greet Hyeongjun and Dohyon properly before Seungyoun started talking their ears off, but that was soon cut off by another surprise visitor.

Without even saying a word, Seungyoun’s mouth spread into one of his widest smiles and he and the other man simultaneously launched themselves at each other like two overgrown kids. It was a very _aggressive _hug, Wooseok had to notice – they didn’t stop hitting each other’s backs the entire time, and it wasn’t just friendly pats, they were full-on _hits_.

“Gyul!” Seungyoun screeched “Are you skipping lectures again?”

“Hey, I have lectures every day, but it’s not every day that my best friend opens his first exhibit!” the guy defended himself. Wooseok noticed he was shorter than Seungyoun and Dohyon, but still taller than him, and that he was incredibly handsome. Tan skin, ash grey hair and a muscular physique, he had a celebrity aura around him even though he was obviously just a laid-back college student. Was this the same friend that...?

“This is Hangyul, my best friend since high school” Seungyoun introduced him, as if he was reading Wooseok’s mind “I told you about him, right?” Wooseok could only nod, and Seungyoun didn’t get the chance to introduce him, before Hangyul’s lips spread into a wicked grin.

“So _you’re_ the Wooseok guy Seungyoun couldn’t stop talking about for the past two months” Hangyul nodded thoughtfully while examining Wooseok “Holy shit Youn, he’s even prettier than the photos! Say, why are you dating Seungyoun? Just so you know, he’s only pretending to be rich. He’s probably in debt right now tryin’ to act like a sugar daddy.”

“You sent him my _photos_?” Wooseok laughed at Seungyoun, who was already flustered. Wooseok already had a feeling he’d get along swimmingly with Hangyul, since he was just as successful at getting Seungyoun flustered as Wooseok himself.

“Well, I had to get best bro’s approval, you know?”

“And did I get it?”

There was a second of silence, and then Seungyoun and Hangyul started laughing as they remembered Hangyul’s exact words: “I’m not gay, but damn, I’d smash”. They both decided to just nod at the poor, blissfully ignorant Wooseok, whose eyes incredulously went back and forth between them.

“So, do you guys want to join us for dinner later? We’re going to a new Chinese place with two of Wooseok’s friends after the gallery closes” Seungyoun invited all three of his friends.

Dohyon looked at Hyeongjun first, who gave an enthusiastic nod. “We’re in!”

All heads turned to Hangyul. “Sure, I have another midterm to skip tomorrow”, he agreed nonchalantly.

“You’re skipping _midterms_?!” Seungyoun scolded him, and Wooseok couldn’t help but smile at how bright and carefree Seungyoun looked around his friends. It was just like the pictures he hung on his walls, and Wooseok’s heart was swelling with joy as he watched them come to life. This was everything Seungyoun deserved – he was in the middle of his exhibition, which he had worked so hard on, surrounded by friends and a boyfriend who loved him, filled to the brim with happiness and optimism. Wooseok never wanted to see him as anything less than this, but even if such times came, he silently vowed to always be there to bring Seungyoun back to his throne.

“Hey, I’ll leave you to your friends for a bit” Wooseok whispered to Seungyoun “I have to go find Jinhyuk and Sejin, and then we’ll go to dinner together, okay?”

Seungyoun caught him off guard by giving him a small kiss on the forehead. “Thank you, Wooseokie” Seungyoun whispered back “See you at dinner.”

With his heart beating unreasonably fast and his cheeks dusted red, Wooseok left Seungyoun to catch up with his friends and started cruising through the sea of gallery visitors again. Finding Jinhyuk in a crowded place had never been a hard task, partly because of his abnormal height, and partly because he was never below shouting “Wooseokie!” and waving both his hands in the air like a lost child. Thankfully, he was doing so right by a table full of free champagne.

“There you are!” Jinhyuk beamed when he saw him “Your boyfriend’s pretty awesome, you know?”

“Yes, I am aware” Wooseok said proudly “Be sure to tell him that later at dinner.”

“By the way, where is he?” Sejin asked.

“Oh, his friends came to see him, even a friend from high school that doesn’t live here, so I left them alone and thought I’d find you.”

“Well, it’s an amazing exhibition” Sejin nodded as he looked around at the paintings “Seungyoun is really talented, I can’t wait to meet him later.”

“You know, Sejin is an art nerd too, more so for photography, but he likes painting too, so he’s been geeking out since the moment we came in here” Jinhyuk fake-whispered “Watch out, he might steal your boyfriend.”

“Shut up, I’d never!” Sejin protested “I just think his art is very refreshing. It would be so cool if we could collaborate on something...”

Hearing Sejin sincerely praise Seungyoun, as a renowned artist himself, only made Wooseok feel giddier inside, and he wondered if he even had the right to feel so much pride about something he couldn’t even take credit for. Still, as Seungyoun said, it felt good to have a partner he could brag about, someone who inspired him to work harder so he wouldn’t fall behind, and it was an achievement of sorts that such a brilliant man who was loved by everyone chose _him_.

“I wish we could do a photoshoot with all these paintings and Wooseok recreating each one, that would be so beautiful” Sejin continued musing “Too bad they’re already selling like hot cakes.”

“Really?” Wooseok’s eyes widened. He knew it was a selling exhibition, Seungyoun had to make money somehow, but he never gave it much thought. Now that he did, it was strange to think people will be putting his face in their living and dining rooms, and he wondered if Seungyoun would keep at least one of the paintings, as a memento. Should _he_ buy one?

“Yeah, the one with the butterflies just went for _a_ _million_ won” Jinhyuk nodded, and Wooseok almost choked on his champagne. Truthfully, he had no idea about the standard prices of paintings, but maybe after this exhibition, he could actually take Seungyoun up on that sugar daddy offer.

“We both got really lucky, huh?” Jinhyuk said as he wrapped his arm around Wooseok’s shoulders, and Sejin smiled fondly at them “We have smart, rich artist boyfriends, and we’re still the best model and the best manager in all of Korea.”

“Yeah” Wooseok nodded, finally feeling like all the pieces have fallen in their place “Yeah, we’re really lucky.”

* * *

Two weeks into the exhibition, Seungyoun appeared on his doorway with his hands behind his back and a radiant smile.

“Babe, I’ve got good news!”

“I have a surprise for you!”

They started laughing at the fact that they were both so excited to share their stories that they even spoke at the same time, without saying ’hello’ at all. Wooseok just extended his hand to invite Seungyoun inside and locked the door, still practically jumping with excitement to show him what he had been hiding from him for some time now.

“You go first” Seungyoun, ever the gentleman, said once they settled on the familiar couch.

Wooseok had a small smile that was just between cheeky and shy as he pulled something out of the big pile of magazines on his coffee table. The newest issue of _Dazed_, with Wooseok on the glossy pink cover. He swore there were fireworks in Seungyoun’s eyes.

“You... You’re...” Seungyoun stuttered as he flipped through the pages with Wooseok’s photos “Is it really possible to be this pretty? How... how are you dating me?”

“Shut up, it’s all thanks to Sejin” Wooseok said to hide his rapidly blushing cheeks “He recommended me to the editor-in-chief, plus, he’s a great photographer.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re the most beautiful person ever” Seungyoun insisted as he kept staring at the shiny pictures. Wooseok looked like a real-life prince in the all-black suit and chains the stylist had put him in, and though Seungyoun had seen some of his previous work, this was a completely different Wooseok. The messy hairstyle, the smoky black eyeliner, and the absolute _confidence _in Wooseok’s posture all pierced through Seungyoun in every picture, and it was hard to tear his eyes away.

“But that’s not all” the real Wooseok smiled at him, suddenly looking a lot softer than the man in the magazine “Jinhyuk got a call from _CeCi_ this morning, I’ll get six pages there too. He also got e-mails from _Star_ and _Cosmopolitan_.” While model Wooseok made it hard to breathe, Seungyoun decided he liked the real Wooseok better. The one that smiled like an excited puppy while delivering good news, the one without a hint of make-up on his face, the Wooseok that was _his_.

“Baby, that’s amazing!” Seungyoun shouted before he pulled _his_ Wooseok into a bone-crushing hug “See, you’re not that short and old yet! Poor Jinhyuk’s gonna be flooded with people asking for you. I told you, you belong to the top.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you” Wooseok said and punctuated it with a chaste peck to Seungyoun’s lips, trying his best to ignore the insults Seungyoun had peppered in “So, what’s your good news?”

“Well, it’s not as amazing as yours, but I’ll also be in a magazine next month” Seungyoun grinned “It’s a big art magazine, but I’m only getting like two photos and a five-question interview. Oh, but that’s not the real news! One of the biggest art critics in Seoul just published a review of my exhibit!”

“And?” Wooseok jumped up “Did he like it?”

“I don’t know” Seungyoun admitted bashfully “Haven’t had the guts to read it yet.”

“Oh, come on!” Wooseok huffed in frustration and ripped the magazine from Seungyoun’s hands. After flipping through it until he found what he was looking for, he said: “Here, I’ll read it to you, coward.”

The big, red title read “A LOOK INTO A HEART OF GLASS: The Arrival of Cho Seungyoun, and what it means for Korea’s art scene”. Wooseok thought the title was flashy and over-the-top, but anything less would be unworthy of Seungyoun. The painter in question shut his eyes in embarrassment, but Wooseok just cleared his throat and started reading out loud:

“On May 21st, Mr. Cho Seungyoun opened his first-ever solo exhibition named _Heart of Glass_. From March 17th to May 17th, visitors of the gallery were able to attend the first phase of this ambitious project, a completely different type of exhibition called _House of Glass_, and witness every moment of the painting process. In this review I will be focusing on the final product, the sixty-one paintings that Mr. Cho painted in this two-month period.

Even amateurs know what an impressive feature it is to paint a painting a day, in eight consecutive hours, without making revisions afterward. For this reason, some of Mr. Cho’s paintings are visibly unfinished or painted in erratic strokes, but the strength of the message that they send was not harmed in the slightest by the time restriction.

Even if the paintings hadn’t been hung in chronological order, you would’ve been able to sort them yourself – together, they tell a story of a developing relationship between two people in a beautifully flowing manner. Considering these paintings don’t have a large time gap between them and they all share the same subject, each one is incredibly unique and represents its’ own crucial part of the bigger picture.

They also testify to Mr. Cho’s quick improvement and adaptability – in only two months he was able to develop his eye for detail and day by day the paintings became more complete and multidimensional. The changes he was able to capture in his subject are so subtle that they would’ve slipped by a less perceptive artist, but Mr. Cho has shown an amazing sense of characterization at his young age.”

“Seungyoun, are you even listening to me?”

He was looking at Wooseok with eyes full of tears.

“Hey, what are you crying about, you big baby?” Wooseok’s voice softened as he came closer to Seungyoun. He couldn’t help but hug him, and he felt the small tremors of Seungyoun’s body as he tried to hold back tears. Wooseok knew very well how he must’ve felt – he had jumped headfirst into this frightening challenge and now he got a confirmation that it was all worth it, that his hard work is never in vain and his dreams aren’t out of reach.

“It’s just” Seungyoun sniffled “It feels great when you get recognition for something you worked so hard on. I was so afraid, because it’s my first exhibition and I’m not even putting my best works out there, but to know that people actually like it...”

“Of course they do, you’re an amazing painter” Wooseok planted a little kiss on his boyfriend’s forehead, unsure of what else he could say to Seungyoun at this moment “Now concentrate, ’cause this is the best part.”

“In his brave and innovative debut _Heart of Glass_, Mr. Cho proves that the point of being an artist is not to find perfection, but to spend as much of your time making art as you can. He shows that positive change can only come from hard work and that it’s only the rawest and most personal paintings that can make the spectators share the painter’s feelings. By walking through this exhibition, visitors are taken on a journey that feels similar to falling deeply in love. Each piece can be read as a passionate love letter, revealing just as much as it keeps hidden, and in that way seducing the viewer into looking with a completely open heart.

Mr. Cho Seungyoun stepped onto Seoul’s art scene in such an unashamedly authentic way that even his seniors, myself included, applaud his courage. He is one of Korea’s most promising young painters who will continue to challenge everything we know about art, and his work is so memorable that it has the potential to make changes even outside of our community. I will be anticipating his future endeavors.”

When he closed the magazine, Wooseok couldn’t contain his proud smile anymore. Beside him, Seungyoun was absolutely _beaming_, with his cheeks red from the praise and starry eyes that made him look so soft and young. Because he couldn’t use fancy words such as ’endeavors’ like that critic, Wooseok decided to show his pride with a deep and fiery kiss. A kiss that was meant to claim him as Wooseok’s forever.

This was the start of the bright future Wooseok had envisioned for them. His modeling career was back on its feet, Seungyoun made the most stellar debut possible, and most importantly, they had each other to bask in that happiness with. Wooseok thought he wouldn’t have been half as happy as he was now if his accomplishment hadn’t been shared with Seungyoun – he was as proud of his boyfriend as he was of himself, something he never thought was possible to feel for another person.

“My boyfriend is Korea’s most promising young painter” Wooseok giggled once they broke the kiss.

“Well _my_ boyfriend is Korea’s next top model” Seungyoun retorted, still visibly dizzy from the praise, and possibly the kiss too “So top that, loser.”

“I think we’re what the kids call, a power couple.”

“Damn right we are” Seungyoun whispered inches away from Wooseok’s lips, before he closed the gap once again.

* * *

An hour later, they had moved from the couch and onto Wooseok’s bed, and they were far too comfortable to even consider untangling their limbs and doing anything productive. Since it was too early to sleep, they were happy just cuddling in almost perfect silence, minus one of Seungyoun’s handcrafted sex playlists that was still audible in the background (but it was okay, since it was the slow one).

In intimate moments like these, when they were shielded from the world, as close as they can be, Seungyoun liked to take the time to appreciate every single thing about Wooseok. He thought he’d get bored of it after having to study him every day for the past two months, but Wooseok always managed to show him something new. When his cheek was squished against Seungyoun’s chest, he liked to pet his hair and take in the subtle scent of vanilla shampoo. Sometimes he liked to connect the pale little freckles on Wooseok’s right shoulder. Today, he noticed Wooseok had incredibly long and soft lashes. And then he got called a weirdo for touching his eyelashes.

“What are you thinking about, Mr. Cho?” Wooseok asked, because Seungyoun always looked like he was thinking about something.

“You” he said simply, but only after laughing at the ‘Mr. Cho’ joke that Wooseok couldn’t seem to let go “Always about you.”

“What about me?” When their faces were inches away, they both spoke with an unnecessary softness, as if a loud sound could shatter their moment. Two months ago, Wooseok would’ve thought that’s disgusting, but now he kind of loved it. He loved feeling like the most precious thing in the world, the way only Seungyoun could make him feel, and he liked being looked at like he put all the stars in the sky, the way Seungyoun _always _looked at him, especially when he thought Wooseok wouldn’t notice. He was too busy relishing in that to realize he was looking at Seungyoun the exact same way.

“I’m thinking about how… I’d like to take you somewhere” Seungyoun started “I’d like to make a lot of money with my art and then take you to Paris or something mainstream and boujee like that, order chocolate-covered strawberries to our five-star hotel room, and then just spend _all day _like this.”

“All day?” Wooseok raised his eyebrows.

“Heck, three whole days” Seungyoun decided “I don’t want to do anything but cuddle with you. And maybe paint sometimes.”

Wooseok giggled, because he knew Seungyoun wasn’t one for empty flattery. Whenever he said stickily-sweet things like that, it was because he really meant them, because being a sap was a part of who he is. He never said things Wooseok wanted to hear, he just freely shared whatever was on his mind at the moment, and it just so happened to melt Wooseok’s heart most of the time.

“I have a better idea” Wooseok suggested “How ‘bout this: instead of a weekend vacation, we both become filthy rich and famous, and then when we get old, we buy a flat in Paris with a little balcony where you can paint and I can lounge in my silk robe and a 24k gold face mask.”

“That sounds sexy” Seungyoun laughed “But won’t it be a little chilly in a silk robe in the winter, darling?”

Wooseok pinched his arm because of that awful supposedly-French accent he put on, but it was one of the things he loved most about Seungyoun. He could make him laugh at any time, any place, with his theatrics and his weird imagination and sometimes, he’d just laugh at Seungyoun for laughing at his own jokes like a dork. He was so grateful that he got to love someone like Seungyoun.

“But you’d really get old with me?” Seungyoun asked all of a sudden.

Wooseok hesitated, because he wasn’t really thinking when he said that. It was a scary thought to have at the very beginning of a relationship, but that’s how they always were – they loved hard, with everything they had, and sometimes Wooseok worried that it would burn them out.

But then he remembered one of the very first things Seungyoun ever taught him about love: _Love is something you can never have enough of. Something that always surprises you._ And with someone like Seungyoun by his side, yes, he found it hard to believe there weren’t enough surprises out there to last them a lifetime. Seungyoun was the type of person you can explore the world with, the person who makes you happy to be alive at the same time as them, the one you could only cross paths with if all the little stars were on your side.

“Yeah” Wooseok admitted “I’d probably go crazy, but for some reason I like the thought of it.”

“Okay, then it’s a promise” Seungyoun smiled “We’ll move to Paris when we’re old and slightly less handsome than now.”

Wooseok laughed, because it was such a loaded promise to make at twenty-four when you don’t even know what could happen with your life tomorrow, but it didn’t matter whether or not they’ll actually move to Paris. Nothing mattered, except this moment right now, the moment he got to spend completely wrapped up in Seungyoun. That was the magic of Cho Seungyoun, he thought for the millionth time – nothing mattered except for him.

“Hey, do you know how fucking _tiny _you are?” Seungyoun suddenly changed the subject, and Wooseok remembered once again why he started out hating this man.

“Oh, fuck off” Wooseok tried to wiggle out of Seungyoun’s arms like an angry cat who didn’t want to be cuddled, but Seungyoun only squeezed him tighter in response.

“No, babe, it’s a good thing!” he whined “I’m not making fun of your height, it’s just… you’re so _tiny_? Like when I hold you like this, you feel so small that I think I’m going to cry.”

“I will deck you.”

“It reminds me that underneath all that sex appeal, and the verbal abuse, and the actual physical violence…” Seungyoun continued dreamily “You’re just a soft little kitten I need to protect at all costs.”  
“Seungyoun I will _deck _you.”

They continued to roll around in bed for far too long, laughing or ‘fighting’ or attacking each other with surprise kisses that always made the other smile. Seungyoun’s slow music mixed with their breathing the same way their scents became one – warm sandalwood and soft vanilla bringing perfect harmony into the small bed. Wooseok sometimes wondered how Seungyoun would paint the two of them together, if the colors on his canvas would blend into each other as smoothly as they did. He decided to ask Seungyoun for a painting one day. Maybe he could paint it on their balcony in Paris, while Wooseok lounges in something a little warmer than a silk robe.

Until then, they’ll just live together in the house of glass that is love. Where people could watch them smiling like idiots, but couldn’t hear the song they were singing together. Where they were completely exposed and open with each other, but it wasn’t frightening anymore. A house of glass can be broken by a single stone, but the magic of it is that on the inside, it doesn’t matter whether or not the stone is ever thrown.

Wooseok wasn’t afraid to live in a house of glass anymore, not if it’s a home he gets to share with Seungyoun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE MADE IT!  
I hope you enjoyed this fic at least half as much as I did writing it! Thank you for reading until the end and for giving this story a lot of love, you have no idea what it means to me. I hope I was able to give back ❤︎ I want to make my future works better, so feel free to share some final thoughts! See you soon!
> 
> PS: I'm very sorry, but I won't be writing a bonus chapter/epilogue to this work, nor the Sejinhyuk prequel I had in mind :( I tried my hand at both (as in, wrote about 3K words each), but I felt like it would take away from the story rather than contribute to it, so I decided to focus on my new projects. I'm currently planning out my next Seungseok multi-chapter and a one-shot for a new (secret) ship, so I hope you'll like those too ❤︎


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